


Blithe Spirits

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Gen, M/M, No Tentacles, Outside Night Vale, Together They Fight Crime, Victorian Attitudes, Young Cecil, not really - Freeform, occult investigation, university hijinks, young Carlos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is it. My contribution to the world of Night Vale Victorian AUs. </p><p>In which Cecil comes by a fortune, Carlos is hired on as his personal gentleman, and the two tumble headfirst into the world of occult investigation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leaving Home

 

_Dear Journal,_

_Well! You'll never believe!_

 

_I mean, you will. Or, you won't, because you are in fact a book and completely insensate, but if you weren't!_

 

 _Oh, Journal... Oh, Journal! I am to be leaving our beloved Night Vale for the first time in my seventeen years. A man came to town today, from an attorney's office back east. It so happens that I, your humble owner, am the sole heir to the Palmer estate. And the way he said it, Journal, don't you know I believe that means something? He went on about it. He made it sound so..._ big. 

 

_I'm to return with him to the Palmer House. And here I always thought our house in Night Vale was 'the Palmer house', but he said it with capital lettering, I could tell, on the House as well as on the Palmer, and he's gone on about it. To fulfill the conditions of the will, as a proper male heir, I'm to attend the university that my father attended before he came to Night Vale and married my mother, and that his father attended before him, and so on and so on. I assume if I was older, they would waive that stipulation, if I'd graduated from school here in Night Vale._

 

_Oh, Night Vale, how I'll miss it. I'll miss Earl... we are not close the way we used to be, and true, sometimes in this time of life people who were boys together grow apart, and my feelings for him have not been warm as of late-- not the way that they once were-- but still. I'll miss so many people. And John Peters, you know, the farmer? I'll miss the invisible corn harvest and the big celebration the town would have and I might even miss Stephen Carlsberg, though you well know the story of our falling out this past September._

 

_I am to live in this capitalized House, at least until I have completed my higher education. I'm sure that the school is a good one, and I shall have a private tutor until I begin, to ensure that my secondary education is completed satisfactorily and that I am ready come the start of the next year._

 

_And I'm to have a gentleman's personal gentleman. My new solicitor believes I ought to have a full household staff, but I don't know how I feel about that. I've never had servants before. I've gotten on fine just by myself two years now. I've little memory of the year before that, and my childhood is hazy, and perhaps that is why my affections for Earl Harlan have cooled? As to his for me I couldn't say, but he is busy often, and always off outdoors doing things, and maybe we fell out as well in that year I don't remember. Or perhaps he just doesn't know how to behave to me after the tragedy that was so mercifully wiped from my mind, but which must have occured to leave me alone in the world._

 

_I don't know how I feel about any of it._

 

_Stephen Carlsberg came to speak to me, when he heard I would be leaving. He's been outside of Night Vale himself, and knows something of how the world is. He says it is quite different and often I do not pay him any mind if I can help it-- and often we have argued about these things-- but despite our falling out, he was good enough to warn me that some things are not_

 

_He was good enough to warn me that away from home, the world is_

 

\---/-/---

 

"We'll send for the rest of your things, Master Palmer." The Solicitor assured him. "We'll be catching a train from the city. And we must get you outfitted properly before we arrive..."

 

"Properly?" Cecil frowned at the case dangling from his hand. He had all his best clothes packed! For the journey he was dressed in a suit and tie, and he hadn't been told that it wouldn't be good enough. Should he have worn a formal tunic?

 

"We'll worry about it when we get there, now come along."

 

He sighed and followed, and was held back from loading his own trunks onto the coach. The reprimand, ever in his ear, that he was a Gentleman now, of wealth and class, a man who did not load his own luggage when there were rough-handed boys who did work like that for him.

 

Cecil liked rough-handed boys just fine, but he didn't think it was fair to pretend he wasn't able-bodied enough to handle his own personal belongings just because they existed. 

 

Cecil liked rough-handed boys more than just fine, if he was honest, but he'd been warned not to be honest, not outside of Night Vale. This solicitor came from outside, and would not understand, and so he didn't smile too long at any boys at all, and left a letter for Earl, who had been away when the whole thing had come up. Better that way... to leave a letter explaining things and expressing warmth for the friendship they had had, than to have a goodbye with public demonstrations of affection when deep down he knew they were different people. Perhaps he was not quite a Man at seventeen, but he was not the boy he used to be, either, nor was Earl, and the things they'd had in common had dwindled to just two over the years. And Cecil didn't think 'kissing other boys' counted.

 

Earl was civic-minded and loved Night Vale, and that was one thing that Cecil could always respect about him, could always look back on fondly and with a sort of pride, that they had loved their town together, even if they could not quite love each other the way they once imagined they might.

 

The ride away from Night Vale felt long, and cold.

 

\---/-/---

 

The City was a strange place, seemed the direct opposite of Night Vale in so many ways, and Cecil found himself sticking close to the Solicitor. The man was a stranger himself, but at least he was a stranger that Cecil knew something of, and at least his purpose there was to help, in his own way. Everything else was baffling, and he was not ready to explore it, was still feeling the sting of homesickness too keenly to find joy in the newness and oddness of it all.

 

"We'll have to have something ready-made altered for you, we won't be here long enough to have a suit tailored." The Solicitor informs him, as they leave the train station where he has made arrangements. "Once we arrive at the estate we can do a bit better, you'll have a valet to see to everything then, but you need something appropriate to arrive in."

 

Cecil merely nodded. He found himself nodding a lot, as he was dragged about and measured and shown suits that he supposed must have been better than his own in some way. He nodded all the way to the big building where he gathered valets could be hired, and felt he wasn't taking in much of anything.

 

\---/-/---

 

_Mama,_

 

_I'm well and hope to get real work soon. I know my dream position is not open to me. I have been told I should think myself fortunate if a good house hires me for a kitchen boy. It's not what I want and work for, but if it comes along I will take it, and I will send money home. If work cannot offer me the challenges my mind requires, then I will save a little money for myself to buy books. It is unlikely I should be granted free reign of any great libraries while cleaning up in someone's kitchen. Until I am hired, I am still hard at work here, where there is always something to do until a real job comes my way. Already I have learned a great deal-- more than any kitchen boy needs learn._

 

_Love to the whole family. I will write you again if my circumstances change, and I am sorry I did not have more good news to send you,_

_Your Faithful Son Carlos_

_  
_\---/-/---

 

They hustled Carlos from the room, as the prospective valets were lined up. He was used to it, though normally there was more advanced warning. He resumed work in the next room, watching idly through the half-open door as a man blustered in with a wan, bespectacled boy in his wake.

 

Well, 'boy' was perhaps an exaggeration. The young man looked to be his own age, when he did look hard enough. Largely unremarkable, standing in the shadow of the gentleman making demands, dressed... not so well as the usual clientele. 

 

Their eyes met through the door, and the boy smiled, and his eyes... 

 

Those were not unremarkable. Nor was the smile. It was weak and yet it was bright, and the boy even looked taller for having smiled and Carlos couldn't recall having been smiled at quite like that ever before. In fact, most people who came and went, if they saw him at all, ignored him. Most of the people who stayed ignored him-- those who worked there, or who studied the exacting etiquette of being a household servant, or who relied upon the attached agency to be hired out... And, when they did not ignore him, they called him Mister Charles with a particular sneer that he had to pretend not to hate, or even to notice.

 

The man specified the need for travel, stating that they would be leaving for New England by train that evening, and would need to hire on a valet who could do the same. Several of the men standing in a line to be hired excused themselves at the stipulation. Through the gap in the line, the boy pointed at the half-open door.

 

"Couldn't I hire a gentleman's personal gentleman my own age?"

 

Carlos' eyes went wide. The director sputtered. The man gawped, and the boy looked between them all, confused. 

 

"Mister Charles is not a valet." The Director shook his head. 

 

"Oh." The boy said sadly. "I-- I see. It's just... Well, I've never--"

 

\---/-/---

 

Cecil swallowed, his gaze lifting up from his shoes again, flickering past the dark face staring at him from the doorway, feeling a tug somewhere in his chest. 

 

"I've never done this." He began again, his voice clearer, and he thought he heard a soft noise from the other boy, and did not dare look back to him. "I'm traveling very far from home, you see, and from all my friends--"

 

"A servant is not a friend." The Solicitor hissed.

 

"No, Sir, I know, but this will also be the first time my education will depend upon a private tutor, and I'm not accustomed to it. The idea makes me rather nervous, you see, and I thought if I had a boy my own age who could just be there, I might pretend I was in a classroom and I might not be so nervous at all. That's all." 

 

"He's studied it all." One of the men, who'd wandered from the line unable to make the journey to New England, approached with a shallow bow. "Charles has, that is to say, sirs. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew as much about being a valet as I do."

 

"That settles it." Cecil beamed, turning to a livid director. "And what shall I make the cheque out for, for your hiring him out to me?"

 

\---/-/---

 

_Oh my dear Journal!  
_

_I saw a boy today. With raven hair and cheek of tan and an aura of bright light about him! And I knew immediately that he and I should be very important to each other and do you know I quite loved him, right in that moment? He was beautiful. But it was not only his beauty, it was so many un-earthly things that I have no words for, that came to me with none. I only knew that I must love him, and that he must be deserving of it.  
_

_He had very little of his own to pack, and then we picked up the suit we had altered, that I must wear to arrive in, and I write to you on board the train, where my solicitor is having an argument with the stationmaster.  
_

_It's a useless argument entirely because the problem as he sees it is that there is no accomodation for Carlos--_ Carlos! _Even his name thrills me! His real name, which he confided in me, though apparently no one else used it. Well, my solicitor is upset over it because he'd arranged for passage for the two of us plus a servant but I am ecstatic at the thought that Carlos will travel with me, instead of on some other part of the train. After all, shouldn't he be with me if he is supposed to be my personal gentleman and all?_

_I will have to be careful to conduct myself as befits a gentleman, but to think, this wonderful boy whom I love will be traveling with me and living under my roof, and spending his days with me! Oh, I do not know what being a valet entails but I hope that I can make his tasks pleasant. I hope that he enjoys being with me! I do not hope for him to love me, and if I ever believed you might fall into hands other than my own I could not even write it, not now that I am traveling so far from Night Vale, to places where such things are frowned upon. I do hope that he might like me, for no matter what I claim to know, I would rather be his friend than some kind of master. I don't know how to be that, but we could be friends. Friends where one friend employs the other, does that have to be so impossible?_

\---/-/---

 

"Mister Palmer, your Night Vale sounds so impossible." Carlos laughed, before bringing his hand up to his mouth, relaxing only at Cecil's continued smile.

 

"It's a wonderful place!" Cecil nodded. "Someday we'll go back there. I-- I mean, I do hope you will still be with me."

 

"Y-yes. Of course! I could never hope for a better opportunity! I studied everything I could, but I never dreamed that I would really be-- be given this position."

 

"Really?" Cecil tilted his head to one side. "Is the competition so fierce for personal gentlemen?"

 

"Well..." Carlos' brow furrowed. "I don't know. I was told I could be a kitchen boy. They tend to stick us in the back of the house where we won't be seen, or at least where we won't be seen often."

 

"Oh." He blinked. "Us... kitchen boys?"

 

Carlos merely shrugged, uncomfortable. "Of course, I'm happy for the opportunity. It's... well, it's better than I thought I would get, and I'm grateful."

 

"Well, let me know if there are other things you would be grateful for!" He nodded again, enthusiastic. "If there's anything I can do to make things feel like home for you, I want to do it! I know I'll be the farthest from home I'll have ever been and... Well, I suppose we can experience that together. And try to make a home of what we find."

 

"You're very kind, Sir."

 

"Cecil."

 

Carlos gave a little nod and bit at the inside of his lip, reluctant to embrace the informality. 

 

"Is there anything? Anything at all, that would make this your dream posting?"

 

"My wildest, least realistic dreams?" Carlos braved a little smirk, and Cecil beamed at him.

 

"The wildest you have. I can make no promises for unrealistic things, but I do want to hear them. And to try, if it will make you comfortable. I am sure the happier and more comfortable you are, the happier and more comfortable I will be! I don't know all that personal gentlemen do, but I'm sure that's true."

 

"My dream posting..." He shook his head, smiling to himself. "I always dreamed about working for a great scientist, and... and being allowed to read the books. I... I always wanted-- I wish I could be a scientist."

 

"Can't you be?"

 

"I-- I don't think-- oh... But... just being able to study on my own from books would make me happy."

 

"If I have no books on science at my house when we get there, well, I will just have to obtain some! And... Carlos, if you wish to pursue science, even if it meant leaving me to do so, I--"

 

"Mister Palmer, I'm not going to be a scientist." He shook his head more vigorously. "You really have nothing to worry about. You're very kind, but I'll be working for you for as long as you require my service, and-- and I thank you, for any books you would lend me on the subject. And that will satisfy me, that will more than satisfy me."

 

"I'm so glad." Cecil beamed. 

 

"It's getting late." Carlos observed, his face turning to the window a moment, to the darkened world that sped past them outside. "I'm sure there will be a place I can go, if this mess isn't sorted out, once you're settled. Is this the case with your nightclothes?"

 

"Erm, yes." Cecil nodded, fiddling aimlessly with his hands as Carlos opened the suitcase and pulled out his nightshirt. "But I have room right here for you to stay! And I'd rather-- I've never traveled alone before and I like company, and--"

 

"You'll want to stand, Sir." Carlos coughed.

 

Cecil stood. 

 

He started back a moment later, when Carlos began on his waistcoat buttons. 

 

"Is-- this what a personal gentleman does?" He asked, his voice rising to an embarrassing pitch. 

 

"Part of it, yes. I've had some practice with it all, Sir, it's fine-- I know how to handle a... good suit."

 

Cecil nodded, eyes wide, and steadied himself against the upper berth of his compartment, doing his best to remain calm as Carlos divested him of his waistcoat, and to appear as if he had an ordinary heart rate, and indeed an ordinary rate of respiration, and ordinarily dry palms. 

 

Carlos undid his tie and removed his starched collar as well, and put everything away with careful, precise little motions, and Cecil found his eyes drawn to Carlos' hands. He was sure that was the end of it, until Carlos returned to unfasten his braces and to begin on his shirt. By the time Carlos took his trousers down, he was in a mortifying state, and staring resolutely at the ceiling.

 

"Oh." Said Carlos.

 

"Oh." Cecil echoed.

 

"That's only natural." Carlos offered, conciliatory. "I mean... it happens to me sometimes for no reason at all? Just... youth, I expect."

 

"Oh. I'm... not used to being undressed by someone else. I normally do it myself. I do everything myself. I-- Is it all right, then?"

 

"Of course it is. Really." He promised, bringing Cecil his nightshirt and helping him into it. "I'm sure seasoned valets get used to that kind of a thing happening from time to time."

 

Cecil nodded, still feeling somewhat miserable as he slid into the lower berth. He closed his eyes, and listened to Carlos changing, but did not dare look. He didn't think his problem would ever go away if he did. 

 

"Are you sure--?" Carlos began.

 

"I'm sure." He pressed. 

 

"... Have you ever been on a train before, then, Mister Palmer?"

 

"No. Have you?"

 

"No." Carlos answered.

 

"Then we begin this adventure together."

 

That, at last, made Cecil smile again, problem shrugged aside.


	2. The Palmer Family Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil and Carlos reach the Palmer House. And it is not quite what either of them expected to find...

_Mama,_

 

_I will be posting this as soon as I am able, which may be from a railroad stop. I do not know if my letters will be forwarded or not, but I will write to you again once I have reached the Palmer estate, so you will have an address to reach me at._

 

_The most wonderful thing has happened! Mama, I have been hired on as a valet to Mister Cecil Palmer. It means traveling with him across the country, and that takes me even farther from home, but I promise to write often, and to wire money home. It is beyond my wildest dreams, and as much as I will miss the family dearly, even more than before, the money I will be able to send home is going to be so much better._

 

  
_Mister Palmer is a kind young man. He is only my own age, which he said was his reasoning in hiring me and not someone with more experience. I believed they would not allow me to be hired out to him, and yet he talked and talked, and by the end of it the deal was done somehow. He tells me he has never had servants before at all, and only recently learned that he was heir to any fortune at all, and he treats me the same way he treats anyone. No, he treats me_ better _than that. And I think I do like him, for all of that._  


 

  
_When next you hear from me, I shall be in New England. It is a long journey, but it is such an opportunity for me. I have been promised free run of the library there!_ _Everything we ever wanted is coming true for us. I remain_  


_Your loving son,_

_Carlos_

 

\---/-/---

 

"Carlos!" Cecil bounced up from his seat, his smile wide and relieved. "I was worried you wouldn't make it back onto the train in time!"

 

"I wouldn't let that happen, Mister Palmer." Carlos promised, somewhat stiffly allowing his hand to be seized and squeezed tight. "They assured me there would be plenty of time at this stop for me to post a letter."

 

"Oh. Of course. Well... Good." Cecil gave an awkward nod, prying his hand from Carlos'. "I'm glad you've returned, at any rate. I found the whole train business frightfully exciting at first, of course I did, but... well... It sort of gets to be dull after a long enough while, doesn't it? I mean, there is nowhere to really _go_ , is there? Except for forward, I mean. But the train does all of that for us, and we just..."

 

He shrugged expansively.

 

Carlos nodded. "Well, it won't be so much longer now, Sir. We may as well relax while we have the opportunity, I'm sure once we reach our destination, we shall both be kept busy. There must be an awful lot of work in inheriting an entire estate."

 

"And in having to run it for me." Cecil laughed sheepishly, reaching out again to squeeze Carlos' arm warmly. "I... You can hire on as much help as you need, if it is all too much. I never really thought about that, when I said I didn't want to have a staff... only that I'd no idea how to be an employer."

 

"I'd noticed." Carlos smiled. "You will get the hang of it, Sir. Once it's stopped being so new to you. And I shall do my best to help."

 

Cecil sat, drawing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. "You do help. I've-- I'm-- May I say I have come to be fond of you, Carlos?"

 

"O-oh... You may, Sir, yes. Of course. And I... regard you with the utmost esteem." He picked over his words carefully, uncertainly. He wasn't sure what to do with the way Cecil beamed at him hopefully in return.

 

\---/-/---

 

_Journal, what am I to do about myself?_

_My treacherous body is the problem. Every nerve in me leaps at Carlos' touch, and he is so professional and so blameless, and if what I was warned about is so, then he would be appalled to learn that it is not merely youth and an overactive drive that sets these fires in me whenever I find myself less than dressed at his hands. He would leave me, and he would have every right to, for it is not what he signed on for.  
_

_I am a coward for not confessing all to him, am I not? I must look at it thus; were I a young lady, I should never hire an attractive man to undress me. Were I a man of conventional tastes, similarly, I would never hire a young lady for that same task! Being that I have always been of unconventional tastes, it is then wrong of me to allow Carlos to bring me this fleeting, torturous pleasure, of being undressed, of giving fodder to dreams I dare not recount here.  
_

_And yet, Carlos is so adamantly professional, Journal. So perfect in his dedication to his post. If I were to refuse him what is a standard duty for any personal gentleman, he should be hurt by it, thinking I was unhappy with his service. What other explanation could I offer him, except the truth? And that I must never reveal, if I want to keep his company. And I love him too dearly already to think of his departure. He is essential to me now. The times that he relaxes himself around me enough to betray something more friendly than servant-to-master are like precious gems. He has yet to use my given name, though several times I have said he might. I would ask him more firmly to, but shyness overcomes me at that... it is enough that he sometimes smiles when a personal gentleman would not, that he sometimes jokes with me as a friend would and looks at me as though we are equals. I hope in time to increase the number of those looks, those moments. I hope to deserve his friendship, though I do not know how with this secret between us.  
_

_How odd to be suddenly ashamed of the way that nature has made me, when I never was back home. It was never a secret then, though. I never dealt with the thought of judgment for it. How odd to judge a man at all for how he was born, and yet it seems since leaving Night Vale I have seen too much of it. I hope when we reach my new home, things might be different, but I shall have to be careful.  
_

_  
_\---/-/---

 

There was a carriage there to meet them, when the train finally reached their stop, and Cecil-- wearing the new suit that Carlos had dressed him in-- was eager to see his new place of residence. 

 

"Sir! Please, I'll handle all the bags!" Carlos rushed to take his suitcase.

 

Cecil allowed it, with a soft 'oh', watched as Carlos and the driver loaded his trunk as well, and the Solicitor's case, and Carlos' bag. 

 

"I'd have helped." He protested, as Carlos offered him a hand into the carriage. 

 

"No need, Mister Palmer, really. You are my employer. And I am earning my keep." Carlos smiled, climbing up after him. They sat across from each other, with the Solicitor beside Cecil.

 

Cecil was sorry not to be able to sit beside Carlos, but he couldn't deny the little giddy thrill at having their knees bump on occasion, as the carriage rattled on towards their destination.

 

"Now, the caretakers will meet us." The Solicitor explained, ignoring Carlos entirely-- ignoring the fact that Cecil had eyes only for his valet. "It is my great hope that you can keep them on, but when last I spoke to them, they were anxious to move on, so you may have to hire all new help."

 

"Mm. Good. I mean-- Yes." Cecil nodded. "Of course. I'm sure it will all turn out?"

 

The Solicitor harrumphed. 

 

When they finally rolled to a stop before the biggest house that Cecil had ever seen-- bigger and grander and much older than Marcus Vansten's manse in Night Vale-- a gruff man with thick, iron grey sideburns helped Carlos to unload Cecil's luggage, and an equally gruff and equally grey woman greeted Cecil and the Solicitor.

 

"We have seen to it that the west wing of the house would be ready for your arrival, Mister Palmer, sir." She gave a prim nod. "Angus will take your boy to get things put away and show him the lay of things starting in the downstairs, and I shall give you a tour of your new home. Unless, Sirs, you'll be wanting tea first?"

 

"Oh, but could Carlos not--" Cecil began, wilting under a look from the Solicitor. "Will you see to it he also gets his tea, then? And it matters little to me what order we do things in."

 

"Of course, Sir. This way."

 

"I suppose it shall be up to us to sort the other half of the house out?" He looked up at it, looming, ivy-covered, before him. It seemed an immeasurable task.

 

The woman froze. "No, Sir. The old Palmers have the east wing and we let them keep it."

 

Cecil frowned. 

 

\---/-/---

 

It was some time later when Cecil felt he could finally relax, rid of his Solicitor and the caretakers who had been so anxious to leave the grounds. Free, at last, to merely be, with Carlos.

 

"That woman said something." He mentioned, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet, hovering in the kitchen doorway. 

 

Carlos looked up from his tea, taken at the kitchen table rather than in the parlor, despite Cecil's invitation. "Oh?"

 

"She said the east wing of the house belongs to 'the old Palmers'?" He bit at the insid of his cheek thoughtfully. "Only I had been given to think I was the very last of us and that I was to live here alone. No one ever mentioned any distant cousins or doddering, infirm relations who could not manage an estate."

 

"That sounds like a cruel thing to say, then." Carlos' expression darkened. 

 

"I was wondering-- when you have quite finished your tea, of course!-- I was going to go. To see."

 

"I was told the other half of the house is all locked rooms and things under dropcloths. Some storage, perhaps, and some broken furniture, and old junk. There is no one living there, Mister Palmer."

 

"I thought not." He nodded glumly. "But... well, it is my house. So I am going to go poke around a little bit-- carefully! You needn't come along if you don't wish to."

 

"No, I will." Carlos set his cup down, standing. "I've no idea if that half of the house is lit, the gas lamps are new. I'll fetch a lantern or a candle, something..."

 

Cecil brightened, waiting in the front hall for Carlos to meet him with a lantern. The carpeting was plush and dark, and as they crossed into the east wing, thick with dust. Everything was dust, and old creaking sounds of a settling house, and Cecil held Carlos' arm. 

 

Finally, they came to a door that had not been quite closed, and Cecil pushed it open onto what seemed to have been a music room, in its old life. The walls were dark green, curtains drawn to keep the paper from fading, and there were white shapes in the lantern's light, of a cloth-draped harp and a covered piano. 

 

"It would be a shame if these were never used." Cecil sighed. "I don't play... but..."

 

Carlos was not looking at him. Carlos was gaping, wide-eyed, at the other end of the room, and Cecil turned to follow his gaze.

 

"Oh." Said Cecil.

 

"Oh." Said the silvery mist hovering over a settee, before coalescing into something man-shaped, and speaking in a rich baritone. "Are you... Roger?"

 

"No, Sir. I'm Cecil. Cecil Palmer." Cecil introduced himself, feeling it would be rude not to, regardless of the  nature of his new housemate. "I am afraid I know no Roger."

 

The ghost broke into a grin, some color touching its form. It had a neatly-trimmed beard that almost appeared to be auburn, a black bowler hat, eyes that seemed to be green for only a moment. 

 

"You're not little Cecil? You're not my brother's boy?! Oh-- Yes, I see him in you. Ah, but he was always very plain-looking, I got the looks in the family." The ghost joked. "So you must have something of your mother as well. I wish I had met her... Erm. Introductions in order on my part, yes? I'll be your uncle Edward."

 

"It's very good to meet you." Cecil said, with a shallow bow.

 

"Only you'll call me Uncle Teddy! Yes, I like that! Oh, I never had the _chance_ to be an uncle properly before! If you ever need anything at all, you come around and call, and I shall be at your disposal, Cecil. And who is your friend with the fish mouth?"

 

"Uncle Edward-- Uncle Teddy-- this is Carlos. My gentleman's personal gentleman."

 

"Good to meet you, then, Carlos." Edward nodded. 

 

"Ghost." Carlos managed. "That-- that is a ghost. Mister Palmer, your house--"

 

"Well, yes, but he is family!" Cecil smiled brightly. 

 

"You'll meet grandfather Beauregard and old Richard and little Thomas and Eustace eventually, I expect. Thomas will be up playing in the attic, and Beauregard and Eustace are together I have no doubt, and up to no good, and old Richard is moping wherever he is."

 

"How many of you _are_ there?" Carlos gawped.

 

"Only the five of us." Edward made a shrug, flitting over to the piano. "The curse of the Palmers does not strike often."

 

Carlos grabbed at Cecil's hand. Cecil nearly swooned.

 

"The curse of the Palmers?" Carlos pressed. 

 

Edward's expression fell, and he grew fainter.

 

"It affects the men in the Palmer family. Not all of the men, of course-- Cecil, your father died too young, but it had nothing to do with the curse. There is... a particular infirmity, that some of us bear. Richard was the first, in the first generations of Palmers on the continent. He built this house with his brother-- much smaller, back then-- and has never left it. Beauregard lived to be the oldest, of all of us, and Thomas died the youngest. He died before he was even old enough to know he was afflicted. I knew. I'd met Eustace, and pieced some together... but I never could find a way of breaking it. Not in time."

 

"A hereditary illness? Has no doctor ever examined-- I mean, _had_ no doctor ever examined--" Carlos began, shaking his head.

 

"Frequently. I was in and out of the doctor's office with a regularity that earned me some comment and reputations both as an invalid and as a hypochondriac. Of course, I died in a riding accident, so..." He shrugged once more, his fingers sliding across the covered piano, his gaze melancholy and distant until it suddenly fixed itself upon Cecil. "I do believe you must."

 

"Must?" Cecil blinked.

 

"Find a way of breaking the family curse. It is not that I mind being here for eternity. Heaven is beyond my grasp. I would rather stay at home than be damned. But even Beauregard could not cheat it forever, and... When I look at you, I do not only see your father, and what I suspect is the influence of your mother. I see myself, dear child. I see myself in something that crawls beneath your skin, that lives behind your face, that grips and twists at you in ways that the rest of the world cannot see. I would like to think myself mistaken, of course, but..."

 

"Then think yourself mistaken. Mister Palmer is in perfect health." Carlos insisted, taking Cecil's hand and leading him back towards the door. "There is no such thing as curses. And if he ever does fall ill, then we shall visit a doctor and see what modern medicine might do for him. But he will not die young, and he will not haunt this place, and heaven is not beyond his grasp, Sir. Good day!"

 

Back in the front hall, Carlos set the lantern down and turned to face Cecil, grasping him by the upper arms and looking him over, putting off his own rising sense of panic in favor of seeing to his master's well-being.

 

"Put any thought of curses out of your mind. We... we have both had a long journey, and-- and we are both weary. And perhaps being in a strange place and hearing an ominous warning from a cruel old woman wishing to leave your employ-- perhaps this is all... not real, somehow. I-- I have never doubted my own senses this way, but..."

 

"Carlos." Cecil smiled gently. "Have you never dealt with the supernatural before?"

 

"No."

 

"Well, I am sorry to say that curses are entirely real, but for the rest of the evening, I shall endeavor to forget about this one. I am sorry if Uncle Teddy gave you a fright, though. And I will not ask you to visit the others with me, if you prefer."

 

"You accept this all so easily?"

 

"Well. I can see him." Cecil reasoned. "I never could catch sight of the Faceless Old Woman who lived in our house back in Night Vale... and yet she was real. She moved things sometimes when I was out of the room, even after I lived there alone, so she must have been real."

 

"You have been haunted before?" Carlos blinked, opened his eyes wide, attempted to take this new information in. 

 

"The Faceless Old Woman was... not a ghost, exactly." Cecil says, with a thoughtful moue. "But I have shared my home with that which cannot be explained conventionally, and that which should not be explained. And I confess I am glad to have family I can speak to, even if they are deceased. I-- I have been alone two years now, with no one, and before that I have distant memories of my mother, but we were always alone, and I possessed no roots. Now I am able to learn so much about where I come from! And that warms me."

 

"Ghosts are real." Carlos dropped his hands from Cecil's arms, and did not notice the way that Cecil swayed forward after him. His head was down, and he began to pace energetically as he worked things out aloud to himself. "Ghosts are real. You share your house with ghosts. Curses may also be real. It is possible that you are cursed. The latest of your afflicted relatives worked to break it and was unable to. He believes you may fall victim. So. We must learn all that we can about curses in general and about your family and those members which were themselves cursed. Cecil."

 

"Yes?" Cecil smiled, and had to school his expression into something suitably serious.

 

"Mister Palmer." Carlos corrected himself, but he turned to face Cecil again, his expression earnest. "If curses are indeed real, and if you are indeed under one, then we shall break it."

 

"Oh... Carlos." He swooned. 

 

When Cecil regained consciousness, he was lying on a very fine chaise longue, his head supported on a long cylindrical cushion, his tie loose and collar open. Carlos was frowning over him, with the sweetest concern. 

 

"Sir! Are you feeling all right?"

 

"Just shock catching up to me." He excused, glancing away, his eyes falling on Carlos' hands instead, the way they were clenched upon his thighs so hard the knuckles had gone pale, two anxious fists. "I will be perfectly fine."

 

"I'll fetch you a brandy." Carlos stood, turning before Cecil could protest. 

 

Brandy, Cecil discovered, was absolutely lovely, but it went straight to his head.


	3. Evening Ablutions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos doesn't know if he believes in curses, but he is prepared to take this one very seriously.
> 
> Cecil is a little more interested in Carlos...
> 
> (this chapter lacks epistolary bits)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha oops I gave this chapter the next chapter's title there for a minute... ch. 4 is 'A New Study', that literally made no sense here. Well, I guess Carlos could be a new devotee of Cecilology, but that doesn't make for a good chapter title.
> 
> Anyway, edit made. Sorry to anyone who reads chapter titles looking for some insight and was confused.

When Cecil comes to again, he is upright, his cheek pressed to something warm and solid.

 

"Carlos?" He asks muzzily, and despite the mounting evidence, he is a little surprised when the answer comes from right beside him.

 

"Are you feeling any better, Sir?" Carlos' hand rests across his forehead and Cecil worries he may swoon again. "My apologies-- the brandy was meant to be a restorative. It... didn't restore you, precisely."

 

"Oh..." Cecil moans. "How _embarrassing_!"

 

"Not at all, Sir. You... only needed a little rest, that's all."

 

He straightens up and wipes hastily at his face, afraid he may have-- heaven forbid!-- drooled on Carlos' perfect shoulder. It doesn't seem to be the case, and he slides a sheepish look over to the other boy. 

 

"I am tipsy a little I think, Carlos, but I do not remember much of what happened after we met my uncle."

 

"Well, no, Sir. That's all right. You-- lost consciousness, for a moment, the shock coming in belatedly perhaps. I brought you in here and tried to make you comfortable, and I thought pouring you a brandy would help, the sideboard was fully stocked... You sat up a bit and smiled and then you pitched over and... snored. I thought perhaps it would be best if I just sat you up for a little while. You seemed content to lean on me until you woke."

 

"Thank you, Carlos." Cecil nods, smile still sheepish but grateful as well. 

 

"Come, Sir... you've had a long journey and a great surprise. There's a cold supper waiting for us and you'll feel a new man after a bath, and a real night's rest in a real bed."

 

"One that doesn't move?" Cecil giggles. 

 

"Not if I keep you out of the brandy, Sir. How do you feel?"

 

"Embarrassed and a little fuzzy, but I really am all right. And... maybe supper does appeal."

 

Carlos nods sharply and rises, letting Cecil slump back onto the chaise. "Will you take supper in the dining room?"

 

Cecil shakes his head with a little frown. Carlos would never eat with him in the formal dining room... he would be so proper, would want to stay in the kitchen, and the dining room was so empty and so big, the whole house was and the only thing that had made the thought of living in such a big empty house bearable had been Carlos, he hadn't realized at first that Carlos would want to keep himself 'downstairs'.

 

"I'll just bring it to you in here, Sir." 

 

"Carlos?" Cecil sits up a little straighter, leaning forward after him and nearly overbalancing himself. He puts a hand to his head, dizzy from moving too quickly too soon. 

 

"Yes, Sir?"

 

"Will you eat with me?"

 

"Mister Palmer..."

 

"Please? I've never been alone in a strange house. Except the one I grew up in and that was a familiar strange, and..."

 

He looks so painfully young for a moment, so vulnerable, and Carlos is struck by the same feeling that had driven him to shout down a ghost, to promise protection against curses which could not possibly be real anyway. Cecil is a strange breed, something so utterly unlike anyone Carlos has ever known, and there is a stunning naivete to him at moments, and Carlos would protect him against the world if he only could. 

 

He can protect him against a little loneliness. 

 

"For tonight, then." He nods, smiling. They'd eaten together on the train, after all... 

 

\---/-/---

 

Cecil had felt the effects of the brandy dissipate over the course of supper, and felt the need to fight against an urge to admit to Carlos why he'd swooned in the first place. He vows instead to not swoon again. Carlos is engaging company, and Cecil wishes he could convince him to share every meal. To share every facet of life... he hasn't seen the servants' quarters, but he thinks they can't be as comfortable as the rooms upstairs, or even as comfortable as his own room back in Night Vale had been. He'd known from the start that he loved Carlos, but it is a joy to discover how much he likes him. It hurts to know he cannot just give him everything, that he would be refused if he offered most things and shunned if he offered his heart.

 

There was probably some sort of association of personal gentlemen who would tell each other about potentially perverse employers and the dangers they posed to the virtue of a nice young valet and then he wouldn't have anyone, but he hardly thinks it matters. If he lost Carlos, he wouldn't replace him. He could never.

 

Carlos follows him upstairs, hanging his jacket up and rolling back his shirtsleeves to begin drawing a bath, and Cecil watches from a low cushioned stool, rapt. Carlos' forearms are lean and wiry, his skin a deep, rich tan, warm and beautiful, dusted with dark hair. His hands are capable, they carry out each task with such businesslike precision... Carlos' profile is a study in concentration, not because the task requires any, but because Carlos is devoted to perfection in all he does. It is something Cecil respects, though he has never known the need to prove himself that Carlos carries. He still appreciates the care that Carlos puts into every little thing, the way he cares about each detail. 

 

"You needn't take pains to make things perfect for me." He offers, just in case. As much of a joy as it is to watch Carlos at work, he doesn't wish to overburden him with perfection.

 

"I make things perfect for myself, Sir, as well as for you." Carlos replies, his eyes on the rising bathwater. He fixes Cecil with an impersonal, measuring look, then returns his gaze to the water, poised in waiting a long moment before seizing the taps and shutting off the water. He smiles at it, satisfied. "And, I make things perfect, as much as I can, because even if you didn't care and I didn't care, God sees everything we do. So I ought to make it perfect as I can."

 

"Oh." Cecil nods. "... Which god?"

 

"God, Mister Palmer. Wh-what do you mean 'which'?" He blinks, confused. "Nevermind. I'll be careful not to give you any liquor in future. Stand for me, Sir, if you please-- here, put a hand on my shoulder to keep steady if you need to."

 

Cecil does so, though he doubts touching Carlos more makes him any steadier. His collar is removed the rest of the way, and then Carlos is undressing him, again, as he had done on the train. As, Cecil supposes, he will continue to do, perhaps every evening. Carlos is just as careful and just as perfect, and Cecil lets himself sway forward, close enough to smell Carlos' hair. It smells of travel, of built up sweat and smoke, and of cheap hair pomade which Cecil hates-- not because the smell is distasteful, but because he had been privileged to see Carlos' hair in its natural state during their journey, and it is so stiff and so lifeless swept back with pomade, when he knows wild abandon lurks in those curls. Carlos pulls it back with the stuff until it could almost be mistaken for straight, and Cecil wouldn't speak ill of straight hair, or of pomade-- his own is useless without the stuff, limp and forever flopping in a lank fall over his eyes, but Carlos' hair is so glorious with nothing done to it.

 

"All right, Sir?"

 

"Fine, sorry." Cecil blushes. 

 

"Steady on your feet, if I leave you for a moment?" Carlos smiles gently at him.

 

"Yes, thank you, Carlos, of course." He nods, removing his hand from that wonderfully steady shoulder. 

 

Carlos treats Cecil's clothes with care, as he sees that the first half are all given their proper places, and then Carlos is kneeling before him and Cecil can't help himself. He tries to think of anything else and fails, and this time, Carlos removes all of his underthings as well and he's left there, naked as the day he was born and with a very awkward reaction. 

 

Carlos is good enough to pretend he doesn't notice this time, Cecil isn't sure whether or not to be grateful, and Carlos helps him into the still-steaming bathwater and brings him soap and a clean flannel. 

 

"Sir... are you certain you'll be all right? You are not lightheaded at all, or suffering the effects of that brandy yet? Not over-tired? I-- I should perhaps stay, if there's any danger of your slipping under the water. There are no tasks that could not wait for me..."

 

Cecil gulps. "I'm fine."

 

"You've looked so flushed ever since I gave you that drink, I'm not sure--"

 

"Maybe it's the water?" He asks, hopeful. "It's perfect, by the way... It comes all the way up and it doesn't slop over and I can never get it right."

 

"I'm glad." Carlos beams. "I tried to think of how much water you would displace, and... well, I was not certain, but I am glad to see I was on the mark."

 

" _Oh_... Oh, Carlos, you're so _smart_." Cecil sighs. 

 

Carlos feels his own face heat, avoiding Cecil's gaze. Avoiding letting himself look too long on any of the young man. 

 

Cecil is _lovely_. It's no longer a surprise, or it shouldn't be, and yet he seems even lovelier now, totally nude, body submerged so that his pale skin shows even paler, lily white through the water. The sparse hair on his chest is pale and silky and gathers the tiniest bubbles Carlos has ever seen. It matches the hair of Cecil's legs, and Carlos finds it strange that the hair there is paler than the hair on his head-- and the thatch of curls between his legs, where Carlos is absolutely _not_ continuously drawn to look.

 

Cecil is _strange_. That is no longer a surprise as well, or shouldn't be. Strange and lovely, and he has _pink nipples_ and Carlos does his best not to be drawn to those either, even though he has never seen them on a man before. He's shared quarters with young men near as pale as Cecil before and yet not a one of them had shared that feature. A soft rosy tan, perhaps, something beigey, but never pink, and if only for their novelty he longs to trace a finger around one, to see if it is different in other ways from his own, if Cecil is more sensitive, and with a heavy, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Carlos must admit this interest is far from scientific. 

 

Cecil is _trusting_. Carlos is certain, without a doubt, that if he said it was his duty to bathe Cecil personally, he would be believed, would be allowed to run his hands all over the soft, pale, sweet body resting in the big copper bathtub. The thought hurts his head, for he is even more certain that it would be the worst sin possible to betray Cecil's trust for his own prurient pleasure. Touching a man at all the way he wants to would be sin enough, but deceiving Cecil to do it when Cecil has only ever been so good to him and promises to continue to be... 

 

Maybe he cannot make up for the defect in his nature by doing everything as perfectly as possible, but even if he cannot heal himself, absolve himself, he will not take advantage of Cecil. 

 

"I haven't bathed in front of anyone since I was a child." Cecil says quietly, returning Carlos' attention to the present, and to the blushing face of the wet, naked young man he has been trying not to let his eyes linger on. 

 

"Gentlemen often do. Personal gentlemen are..."

 

"Personal?" He hazards a little smile.

 

"Yes. And... well, we are servants. We hardly count."

 

"You mustn't say that, Carlos. You're the only friend I have here. And I like you terribly. For a friend, I mean."

 

"Mister Palmer..."

 

"Please?"

 

Carlos nods. It is hard to say no to that face, but impossible to say no to that _voice_. "All right, Sir. But... I am still your servant. I do still need to behave appropriately. Perhaps... when you have no company, I might take meals with you, to keep you from feeling lonely."

 

"Thank you, Carlos."

 

"You will feel better if you actually wash." He suggests.

 

Cecil's blush intensifies. The flannel has been floating carefully in place to preserve his modesty-- what little of it he can be said to have left, as his body continues to betray him. 

 

"I'll not look, if that helps. I just don't want to have you fall asleep again while I occupy myself with cleaning..."

 

"All right." He nods, and with Carlos' back turned, he washes up, doing his best to ignore the little traitor. 

 

Carlos helps him from the tub when he finishes, and hands him a towel, giving him a moment of privacy before bringing him his nightshirt. 

 

"Come, Mister Palmer. I turned down the bed for you while you were drying. Will you be needing me for anything else?"

 

Cecil can think of one thing, is horrified with himself for it-- even if Carlos _were_ from Night Vale and even if he _were_ interested, how _awful_ of him to think so carnally before so much as sending a polite bouquet!-- and he shakes his head.

 

"No, Carlos, thank you. I do believe the sleep will do me good. And sleep well yourself-- And Carlos! Are the other rooms nice? Upstairs, I mean, are the linens in the other bedrooms fresh?"

 

"Yes, Sir, in the one two doors down from you. The caretakers weren't certain if you would have anyone with you, or if your solicitor would need to stay the night."

 

"Will you sleep there? To be more comfortable? You would have pleasanter dreams in a nice bed, and that way you-- you'll be nearby. Just in case."

 

"Sir..."

 

" _Please_?"

 

"For tonight, Mister Palmer. But only when it is you and I alone in the house."

 

"Thank you, Carlos. I know we will both be more comfortable this way!" Cecil beams. 

 

"Sleep well, Mister Palmer. And angels watch over you."

 

"If they existed." Cecil nods, as though they are sharing in some great secret.

 

It is utterly baffling to Carlos that a young man who so readily believes in spirits and curses would suggest that angels of the Lord did not exist.


	4. A New Study

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carlos explores the Palmer House library. Cecil explores the east wing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the real one this time haha)

The next morning, Carlos fixes soft boiled eggs, corn cakes, and coffee, and Cecil eats every bite he's given with an expression of utmost bliss that Carlos is certain he does not deserve. He'd spent the whole of the time Carlos was cooking perched upon the kitchen table, and in the end, Carlos gave in and let Cecil eat there. The kitchen was already warmer than the dining room would have been, after all, and Cecil was adjusting to the New England climate still. He'd described Night Vale as being in the desert, when he'd spoken of his home on the train, and while at least they can be thankful the move was made during the summer months, Carlos isn't certain what Cecil is used to, and wants him to be warm enough as he acclimates.

 

"I'm afraid I'm not much of a cook, really, but I'll improve with practice."

 

"No, it's good." Cecil insists, licking his fork.

 

"I might hire a cook... someone who could come in only a night or two out of the week, or who you might engage for special functions if you do have company. That's only if you want one, but if you think this is fine, I can manage cooking for two."

 

Cecil nods. "And then we'll sit together to eat?"

 

"I-- Yes, Sir. And then we can do that. I'll learn well enough from books. A proper cook could teach me, but..."

 

"It would mean my eating alone."

 

"I am afraid so, Sir."

 

"I would rather have your cooking."

 

"Very well, Sir. There will be food enough for today, but tomorrow I should run to the market for you... I will have to find out which direction it is in."

 

"Uncle Teddy could give you directions." Cecil volunteers. "I was going to talk to him today. I thought if he told me everything he does know about the curse, it would save me so much work in breaking it! I'd only have the littlest bit more to do, comparatively, with everything all the old Palmers have already figured out about it!"

 

The trepidation is writ rather plain across Carlos' features, he thinks, the professional mask cracking, but Cecil does not seem to notice at first, and when he does, he fails to interpret correctly.

 

"Oh, Carlos, of course I won't ask you to come! That's right, I did promise I wouldn't! Oh, I'll get the directions _for_ you!" His hands flutter, nervous apology made physical, all agitation and sweet concern. 

 

"I would if you want me with you, Sir. I don't want you taking any shocks on your own, or-- or getting into any trouble."

 

"Trouble!" Cecil laughs and shakes his head, relaxing. "It's _family_! No, Carlos, you take the remainder of the morning for yourself, really. I'll see you back here, between noon and half-past, I expect, I'm not set on the time but we will both want luncheon eventually..."

 

"Thank you, Sir." Carlos bows, stiff and shallow, but the smile he gives Cecil is unguarded and warm. 

 

The smile Cecil gives right back is blinding.

 

\---/-/---

 

_Mama,_

_We have made our safe arrival at the Palmer House. It is enormous and I wish I could better describe it, but if I had figures they would do nothing to paint a picture for you, I know. Picture the grandest house that you have ever seen, and picture it half again as big. The front of the house alone has twelve windows, if that will give you some idea. Nine of those are large and shuttered.  
_

_The executors of the estate had spent some years looking for Mister Palmer, and some work will be necessary to restore all of the house's glory, but caretakers have seen that it has not fallen into any real disrepair. I may need to arrange for some men to paint it anew this summer, for I am sure that it has been some time since it has had a fresh coat, and there are still rooms to air out and the larder to stock properly, but Mister Palmer has very kindly insisted I have my own free time on this, our first morning here, so that I am able to write you so soon.  
_

_I am still pinching myself at my own good fortune! I cannot wait to hear back from you, and to be able to send some of my earnings home, and to know that you all are well. While I am missing you, my life has taken such wonderful turns, and I am so happy to be able to help support the family, that I do not regret traveling so far from home. Your letters will just have to keep me company as they have since I went away to learn the trade. How strange to think it was not so very long ago in the grand scheme of things, and to think my only prospects were so small, compared to the place I find myself in now, serving the finest young man in the grandest house that I have ever known and being treated well. New England shall not be half so warm as the Indiana Colony, when the weather changes, but my first day here has shown me weather as mild and pleasant as I would find back home in California.  
_

_All of my love!  
_

_Your devoted son,  
_

_Carlos  
_

_  
_\---/-/---

 

Carlos wrote his letter in the library, and once it was finished and addressed, he inspected the books themselves, nervous in spite of the advance permission he'd been given. 

 

He'd intended to look for anything on the sciences. Naturalist studies, perhaps, or geological. He did not hope for terribly recent advances, but steam engineering might have been an interesting read, or archeology. He'd even have accepted anatomy, herbalist resources... anything. 

 

Those ideas fade quickly when he comes upon the book, old and dark and enormous, and most definitely occult in nature.

 

Was this addition to the library the late Edward Palmer's? A part of his research in curse removal? An initial inspection gives Carlos every reason to believe this was the case, and he wonders if the dead man had been able to finish reading it before his accident, if it perhaps could not be ruled out as a helpful resource. 

 

He would have to head to the east wing if he wanted to find out, and with the book heavy in his arms, he makes for the music room.

 

\---/-/---

 

The music room was empty, when Cecil first arrived during his explorations, and he'd passed through several empty rooms, some with sheet-draped furniture, some without.

 

At last, he opens a door to see something completely different.

 

There are no ghosts there, but the bedroom is nearly perfectly preserved, and he blows away thick layers of dust in spots as he makes a careful search. 

 

The bed is a good size, with a canopy and heavy curtains drawn back, a faded coverlet that had been blue and yellow flowers once. The only draped sheet is over the vanity mirror, for which Cecil is grateful-- his mother's words echo in his ears, and he nods and smiles fondly. Always looking out for him... even if she is only a memory now.

 

On the floor beneath the vanity, which bears a dry and dusty pitcher and basin-- white porcelain, painted roses-- there is an envelope, once-pink, or perhaps violet. Even with the dust blown off, it is hard to say, for while the big picture window is curtained and shuttered, there is a gap where light has moved through the room to slowly, slowly weather, and the envelope was not so fully beneath the vanity as to escape the sun's rays.

 

He can still read the name upon the envelope, in a gentle, looping hand, in ink that was once purple-- he guesses. Perhaps it was once black and time has worn even more of its pigment away, for he cannot guess at its age.

 

_Dr James Elliot Pemberly_

_  
_Cecil doesn't open the letter-- he's no idea how old it is nor whether this Dr. Pemberly might still be living. He does, however, open the trunk at the foot of the bed, hoping for clues as to its owner's identity. Some great aunt or cousin several times removed, some relative. He wants to know that some part of his own history is encased there.

 

He finds a needlepoint sampler in a frame, wrapped in a spare swath of muslin, tucked into the bottom corner. Rolled up in the spare fabric are a few handkerchiefs, each embroidered with a bold 'P', with a little edge of the narrowest lace, and beneath the whole bundle there is a diary.

 

It bears no name. He looks inside the cover, and checks to see if the entries are signed, and he catches sight of a bit of hopeful writing, the words 'the man I dream of marrying will be', before he closes it quickly.

 

There is a bit of lace and a pincushion, and some scattered bobbins, and there is a tea service and a neatly folded linen tablecloth, and Cecil has never really seen a young woman's hope chest before, but he imagines this must be one.

 

He stumbles upon Uncle Teddy by accident, wandering the wing in a preoccupied daze with the letter in hand, and is surprised and delighted to see Carlos is sitting on a settee, the draped sheet half thrown aside, while Uncle Teddy hovers next to him, both looking at a large book.

 

"Hallo!" He greets brightly. 

 

"Cecil!" Uncle Teddy waves him over with a hand that trails silvery wisps of itself. "Cecil my boy, your man's made quite the discovery."

 

"Oh? I shouldn't be surprised, Carlos is terribly clever!" Cecil bounces over, catching the edge of the book as Carlos hurries to stand in his presence and nearly fumbles the heavy thing.

 

"It's a guide to curses written by a preeminent scholar. He teaches at your university-- that is, the university you'll attend--"

 

"The university your family paid for half of." Uncle Teddy rolls his eyes, with a little smirk. "Why not treat it as your own? No, but this will be very useful. I'd had it sent over and I never did finish. I was unable to. Well, being as I can no longer manipulate objects or even leave this half of the house... I make no promises as to its contents, but if you'll begin where the bookmark lies, you-- What's that?"

 

"Oh." Cecil looks down at the letter in his hand. "I found it on the floor."

 

Teddy nods, frowning. "He may still be living. I mentioned, before, seeing many doctors. Or I mentioned spending a great deal of time seeing them. I saw as many as I could travel to speak to, but Doctor Pemberly is here in town. Not that you've any obligation to deliver letters for the dead. I imagine... I imagine that-- well, the nature of moving on being what it is..."

 

He looks pained, and Cecil cannot blame him, with the topic of moving on... He does not know how many of his relatives Uncle Teddy had to watch die and then ascend on to the next great thing, while he remained, stuck. He knows the number must be even greater for the ghosts he has yet to meet. 

 

"Do you think it would matter, though?" He presses. 

 

"I think it would be a very kind thing." Teddy says carefully. "If not for the doctor, and if not for the dead, even then you have your own self to make proud. But I do hope that... I do hope that it is well received."

 

"Ah." Carlos' brow furrows, and he readjusts his hold on the book. "Well, we did need to ask about how to get to town."

 

"By horse. Are there still horses? Once you reach the main road from the front of the house, you turn to the left and then you'll see signs, and the town won't be far at all."

 

"I was not shown any horses." Carlos shakes his head. "There is a city coupe in the carriage house, but I imagine the horses had to be sold when there was no one to care for them."

 

"Mm... they did spend years searching for an heir." Teddy allows. "No, I suppose you are right. You'll have to walk into town and buy horses, then."

 

"I've a letter of my own to post." He volunteers, turning between the ghost and Cecil. "And purchases to make. I am walking into town either way and it would be no trouble at all for me to deliver this one to Dr. Pemberley, if he does still live or work in town. Surely someone will be able to tell me either way."

 

"I'll walk with you." Cecil protests quickly, and as soon as Carlos has set down the occult tome, Cecil is taking his arm, releasing it when Carlos stiffens uncomfortably at the open display of friendship. "Well... I still want to. I've not seen anything of my new hometown yet."

 

"Of course, Sir." Carlos nods, and though he does not offer his arm, he escorts Cecil through each door with a gentle touch. "If you tire--"

 

"I walked everywhere in Night Vale." He laughs, though there is nothing unkind in it. Carlos has never observed an unkindness in Cecil. "And Uncle Teddy says it won't be far."

 

"Well if you do, Sir, I'll walk on ahead and arrange you a cab, and we will take one home as well and have the horses delivered. And I shall place an advertisment for just a small household staff, if that is agreeable to you."

 

Cecil nods. He hates the thought of Carlos moving downstairs... but he could never ask him to run the whole of the house with no help at all, not with horses being added on top of everything.

 

"I leave such matters in your capable hands as my personal gentleman." He forces a bright smile until he forgets why it was ever forced.

 

The walk into town is a pleasant one, and until they approach the town proper, Carlos is relaxed with him, enough to whistle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS- 'Indiana Colony' was the name of Pasadena during a period of the late 1800s, after it passed from the last of its Mexican owners and before it became Pasadena. Just a fun* historical tidbit!
> 
> *historical tidbits may not be fun.


	5. To Market, To Market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cecil and Carlos take a little walk into town, on important errands.
> 
> And a glimpse into a very old diary...

_Mother has cautioned me about going into The Suite again. I think she does not like to be faced with mortality in such a way... I wonder often, if she would have married Father had she known about the Curse before, but the Curse did not strike anyone in Father's generation._

_I spoke with Grandfather about it, though Mother does not know about this. I hate to keep many secrets from her when we have always been so close and she has always been so kind and so caring, when her nature is so good, but I think there are secrets which protect her, by not knowing. I know I am her most troublesome child... even if she does not know it herself. It is bad of me, to go behind her back, to sneak into the rooms she wishes to keep closed off, to ask Grandfather questions she would rather I not learn the answers to.  
_

_She would be pleased to know, were it possible to tell her without revealing too much, that my brother shall be safe! That was happy news. Grandfather promised me, the Curse never strikes eldest sons. I know there are other things than curses which might kill a man, but she has such a horror of the ghosts of Palmers past that she would be so happy to think that he will never meet such an end. I wish that I could ease any worry she might have for him, only I fear she would ask me how I should ever think to say such a thing...  
_

_  
_\---/-/---

 

Carlos worries that the walk may be a long one, and yet Cecil's spirits never once flag. When they reach the town at last, he gives his wallet over to Carlos' keeping with a bright smile.

 

"You go and take care of whatever business you have, and if this is not enough, then come and find me and we shall go to the bank. Once I have delivered my letter, I intend to find a bench with a pleasant view and take in the speed of my new hometown, and her people."

 

"Very well, Sir." Carlos nods. "I only planned to put in an advertisement for part time help, and to purchase groceries... Have you any favorite meals I ought to prepare for you?"

 

"I'm sure I shall like anything you make." Cecil shakes his head, blushing. "I did enjoy breakfast so, and-- I leave matters of groceries to your discretion for now."

 

"Very well, Mister Palmer. Once I collect you, we might look at horses. It would make trips easier, and your family's stables are in good condition. I was shown them along with the carriage house, and there are some servants' quarters out near there, not attached to the main house. It might... We might hire on someone full-time, to see to the horses and perhaps the garden."

 

"Would you still be able to keep your own room? And eat with me?"

 

"I... We would see. Until I've hired on any help at all, I shall have to muddle through caring for horses myself... I've no firsthand experience, but I'm sure there are books on horses--"

 

"Oh, I know how!" Cecil beams. "I never had any of my own before, but John Peters-- you know, the farmer?--"

 

"From Night Vale?"

 

He nods. "I worked on his farm sometimes... when he needed the help and there was nothing much else to do, well, a group of us boys who lacked useful occupation would be rounded up..."

 

Cecil's smile grows dreamily nostalgic, and Carlos is moved by that, and the stories he has heard so far of Night Vale seem half fantasy, but he would be so happy to see the real thing, for the way it makes Cecil smile to remember.

 

"That sounds very nice, Sir."

 

"Of course we often distracted each other with play, but we were helpful as well. Earl Harlan, my boyhood-- my close boyhood friend-- he was very good with corn, and if we helped during the summer, then John Peters-- you know, the farmer?-- would reward us all, with being able to take home the best of the crop, before the big harvest festival, and I never did have a way with plants at all, but I did learn how to take care of the horse. I will miss the harvest festival this year... I shall be preparing for University here, and... I have never missed it before." Cecil's smile falls.

 

"Well... Once you've finished your education, then we shall just travel back and you shan't miss any more festivals. Until then, I suppose... I suppose we shall have to find out about the festivals here. There must be something."

 

He nods, forcing himself to brighten again. It wouldn't be the same... He remembers the Imaginary Corn Maze-- as children, they'd raced through it as best they could, laughing as they'd hit thick walls of invisible stalks, finding a clear path... As boys of fourteen, he remembers feeling his way ahead as fast as he dared, by moonlight, the youngest children already gone home and the adults off at the dance, and Earl chasing after him, remembers the promised kisses if he could be caught, that last carefree year, that last time that summer waned and turned to autumn before his missing year. After that, everything was so different... 

 

Perhaps there would be a harvest festival here, perhaps there would be a maze, but he could never ask Carlos to chase him down, could never expect to be kissed... It wouldn't be at all the same as being home in Night Vale.

 

He lets Carlos go, and tries not to let himself be caught frowning too much.

 

\---/-/---

 

When Cecil is admitted in to see Doctor Pemberly, he is not entirely sure what to do with the look he is met with. 

 

"Mister Palmer." Pemberly says at last, his voice constricted, and Cecil had not given his name yet, had not had the chance to. 

 

"Yes." He nods, twisting his hands together. 

 

Doctor Pemberly is a dignified looking gentleman with greying hair and tired eyes behind small rimless spectacles, or he would be dignified-looking, had he not been so recently gaping at Cecil as though faced with a ghost. 

 

"You look like-- You look like your family. I mean, you... The resemblance is-- The Palmer boys, looked quite a bit like you. Forgive me, it has just been a very long time. It's been sixteen years since... Fifteen. Your father died fifteen years ago. They knew he'd left sons behind out in California, I... I suppose-- Forgive me. Dr. James Pemberly, at your service."

 

"Cecil Palmer, Sir, at yours." He offers a hand, and finds the letter in his pocket. "I've only just arrived, and this was in the house, and m-- And I was told you might still live in town. I've no idea who wrote it and perhaps it is useless to you now, but..."

 

He shrugs, uncomfortable. The doctor is gazing at the envelope with the same haunted look with which he'd greeted Cecil, and he sits down hard. Cecil lets himself out.

 

\---/-/---

 

_Dearest Jim,_

_I think of you often. I know this is an awfully forward way of beginning a letter, and yet I can hardly help myself. I walk on air everywhere and no one can figure why for the life of them when they have never seen me in love. Not for lack of trying, as my mother would say. I sometimes stop walking on air, and think to myself it would be a better world if I had been born a poor girl whose parents would leap at seeing her married to a young doctor, except I should hate living like that and I know I should, and then I think there would be no guarantee of your looking at me had I been born anyone but myself, and considering the way I am and the way that you look at me, especially not then.  
_

_As it stands my parents should not leap at my wishing to run off and be married to you, and I know you will laugh when you read it, and it is absurd. We never shall marry, shall we? But I can bear this, for I have always known I never would marry at all. I should die first. I know you think that is morbid of me. I know you so well I can almost hear you answer as I write you.  
_

_Jim, my sweetheart, do you remember when first you had me in your office, and you could find nothing wrong with me at all except for how hard and how fast my heart seemed to beat, and how red in the face I was when you felt my wrist for my pulse? And do you remember when we met out riding? You had gotten yourself lost on that old nag and I stopped to help you, and when our hands touched it was as if the whole world stood still? You promised to lose yourself there often if I would only come along to rescue you and I fell so in love, even more than before.  
_

_My parents are throwing a party this Saturday, and they will likely not think to invite you, but I insist upon your coming and I will make certain everyone knows you come on my invitation. I have something hidden up in my room that I should very much like to give you, and it is a surprise. I shall come down to show you up, of course, though I am sure you remember it well, I sent for you when I had that swooning spell and then you arrived and I only swooned all the more.  
_

_With eternal devotion,  
_

_Your Teddy  
_

_  
_\---/-/---

 

Cecil buys two horses, a pair of Morgans. They are not quite a matched set, one a bright chestnut and one black, but he is enthusiastic about those two being The Horses, despite the less-than-unified picture they may make pulling a carriage together, and by the time he has finished talking to the seller, he has bought them both for what the seller had originally claimed was a very good price for a single horse, though he promises to tip well for having them delivered to the house.

 

"Sir... I am in awe of you at times." Carlos smiles, as they hire a hansom cab to take them back with the groceries.

 

Cecil blushes and stammers, and it feels as though long minutes pass before he can squeak out a reply.

 

"A-are you, now?"

 

"You have a talent for getting the things that you want. You never seem to be a bully about it at all, you merely smile and talk until people come around to you. It's... admirable, I suppose. Or at the very least, it is enviable. You've a talent for manipulation."

 

"Oh." Cecil ducks his head. "I never really thought of it... I mean, I do try to be pleasant, but... It isn't a conscious thing, really. I mean, I never set out to-- to-- I hope I have not _manipulated_ you!"

 

Carlos glances at his feet. "Well... you've convinced me to share your train compartment, and to take a room next to yours, and to eat with you... but you've done all this out of kindness. I think I was perhaps wrong to say you have a talent for manipulation. You've a silver tongue, perhaps, is a better way of putting it, and you are tireless when something matters very much you you. And so I think it stands to reason that people should want to agree to things that might please you. I know when I-- when I listen to you talk, I find myself captivated. And I should very much like to please you, because you have been kind, and because you are so engaging, and-- Well, and because it is my job to, and it is a good job. And you fought for me to have it, in that pleasant way of yours. And I am grateful to you."

 

"Oh. Carlos." He beams, lifting his head, and reaching out to take Carlos' wrist. "I am grateful to you, for-- For being company to me, and for cooking, and for taking care of things. I should not like going through all of this alone and you have been invaluable help to me so far. You even found that book! And I just know that it will be helpful, and you're sure to fix everything!"

 

Carlos wishes he could share Cecil's confidence so fully, but where he does not have confidence, he has determination, and if he does not find answers in this book, then he will find them somewhere else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay think I fixed the only typo...


	6. The Green Book of Curses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Carlos does some heavy reading while awaiting the delivery of the horses, Cecil does some interviewing and receives a shock, and a knock finally comes at the door.

_One of the most common generational Curfef, the Object-Bafed Curfe is also among the easiest to dispell. An honest medium will be able to ferret out the source of your praeternatural disturbances, and may be qualified to remove the Curfed Object from the house._

_A Curfed Houfe is a far more difficult problem to address, for the entire property must leave the possession of your bloodline if you are to be free of a Curfed Houfe'f effects.  
_

\---/-/---

 

Carlos sighs, dragging a hand across one eye. He's made the decision to go over the book he'd found from the start, on the chance that Edward Palmer had missed anything crucial, and there are many hand-written notes in the margins of the first half of the book, most of them to the effect of 'no' and 'not this one'. 

 

He wishes he'd elected to accompany Cecil into the east wing, though he knows it is far more important he do his reading in the front room, where he might answer the door when the man comes with Cecil's horses. The haunting may not be a dangerous one, or a very shocking one, if Cecil's eager cheer is any indication, but it does not sit well with him to let Cecil trot off into rooms which may not have had the same level of upkeep... 

 

It does not sit well with him to let Cecil out of his sight. He thinks he might believe in this curse, and there is a list tucked into the front of the book that paints a grim picture...

 

To it, he has made one final addition, and he will not make one more. 

 

\---/-/---

 

_CURSE_

_George Palmer- Youngest of five brothers, of which only the twins came to America. Died- Hunting accident, age 20  
_

_Eustace Palmer- Second son. Died- Pneumonia, age 27  
_

_Thomas Palmer- Seventh son. Died- fever, age 10  
_

_Beauregard Palmer- Third child. Died- bad liver, age 45  
_

_Edward Palmer- Younger brother to Cecil's father. Died- riding accident, possibly 30s?  
_

_  
_\---/-/---

 

"Eustace told you about all of them?"

 

Uncle Teddy nods, rearranging himself in his spot hovering over the piano bench. "Old George is no conversationalist, but Eustace and I had got a fair bit out of him-- well, the only bit we ever could. And... well, dash it all, I hate to speak to Thomas about it. He was so young. He must have been fated for it and the fever took him too soon, but it hardly seems fair. He and Beauregard are at the two ends of it... Eustace was there for Thomas so he knows... he knows all about that one."

 

He shakes his head sadly, and Cecil nods along with a little frown. He'd caught a glimpse of Thomas Palmer slipping through the faded wallpaper of one of the empty rooms, disappearing from sight, and the boy was so small, to be a ghost... Funny he'd never thought about the proper sizes or ages of ghosts before, but in possession of a house haunted by a ten year old relative from some generations back, well, Cecil thinks about a great many things he never did before his inheritance caught up to him.

 

"Beauregard I did speak to myself, of course. He would float around, through the parts of the house I wasn't meant to go to. My room was in the east wing, you see-- oh, the house was very full, then. My mother's relations lived with us, and of course your father had the bigger of the rooms, being eldest, and I used to slip out and into the parts... It wasn't always the whole wing boarded off, you know. That happened after my own death. I suppose with every death a bit more of the working house was lost... My mother is the one who shut the whole half of it away. I... I still feel so awful for that."

 

He sighs and shakes his head again, and Cecil attempts a comforting gesture that slides through Teddy's arm. 

 

"I sometimes fear the grief killed her... She'd have recovered from losing me eventually, I'm certain, but your father went a year later, and... there was no one to nurse her back from that one. Save our father, your grandfather, and he had so much to see to... the line was dwindling but the estate was so much to manage, another funeral to plan... I-- I meant for her to never see me, but I think she did, once."

 

"I'm so sorry to hear." Cecil offers.

 

"It's all right, it... These things happen. At least, in this family, they do. I never could figure the whole of the thing out and I am sorry for that... Eustace used to think it was to do with loving unhappily. George never spoke of loving happily, at least, and Beauregard married unhappily, and Eustace may tell you all about his heartbreak someday. But I know that isn't true."

 

"Thomas." Cecil nods.

 

"Oh. Yes. Thomas. Maybe he would have, but it seems cruel for him to be punished for things he never had the chance for..."

 

"Do you really know nothing else about it?"

 

"I know it never strikes eldest sons, or only sons."

 

Cecil laughs and shakes his head. "Well! Then you've no need to worry for my sake!"

 

Teddy looks perturbed at that. "Do you not remember him?"

 

\---/-/---

 

_It is a great disappointment that my brother's family had to remain behind but he says his wife's health is fragile and the desert air does her good. I should have liked to have met her properly but I cannot even think of traveling so far from home, when I have reason to stay. If I am to fall victim to my family's Curse, then I wish to have all the time that I can here._

_I should have liked meeting my nephews as well but it will be some time before they are old enough to leave their mother even to visit the old family estate. My brother brags on Roger a great deal. Growing like a weed, he says, and looking more like his old man every day. He is anxious to get back to both boys, of course. Not much to say about the infant yet I suppose but on his next visit there should be news of what they are both like.  
_

 

\---/-/---

 

Cecil hardly knows what to make of the news, has to sit, head reeling and all too light. 

 

He wishes Carlos was nearby with the brandy. It may not be much of a restorative, but he feels he could use the nap. 

 

A brother. He's never had a brother. An older brother! Not even before his missing year, all he can remember is living alone with his mother in their house... 

 

He hears the door, downstairs at the front of the house, and that pulls him out of the strange spiral he's felt pulled into at the idea that he'd once had a brother. 

 

"That must be the horses." Cecil gets to his feet. He lists forward, and Teddy puts out a hand to steady him only to watch it go straight through Cecil's shoulder. "Ooh... that's cold."

 

"My apologies." He chuckles, embarrassed. "I reacted before I could think on it properly, of course I-- Well. You must go down, then?"

 

"I ought to." Cecil nods. 

 

"Will you bring them around by the east wing, and I shall follow along the windows? I've missed horses... Oh, mine was beautiful, Cecil, coal black and soft-eyed... It is funny, I feel worse about the horse than I do about dying sometimes-- the accident."

 

"I have a black one!" Cecil beams. "He pushes his nose right into my hand, he's such a sweet horse. They both are, really. I'll bring them by your windows any time that I take them out! Can you really not leave the wing?"

 

"I really cannot." Teddy sighs. "But I do make do. And for a little new life in the view from the windows, I am grateful. Thank you, Cecil. I look forward to seeing them."

 

Teddy drifts to the window, where he can just spot a hansom, which seems at odds with the expected delivery, and Cecil rushes down to meet Carlos and the anticipated delivery.

 

\---/-/---

 

Carlos, roused from his studies-- so far, so useless-- by the door, is quick to open it, and surprised by a stranger who looks nothing like what he'd expected. Not a man who works in a stable at all, but a gentleman of moderate means in a nice enough suit-- certainly a suit as nice as the one Cecil had worn the day he'd come to hire a valet. 

 

"Is Mister Palmer expecting you, Sir?" He asks, knowing full well that Cecil is not, that Cecil is expecting horses and not men in spectacles and nervous expressions.

 

"Oh-- Er, no. I-- I came by to call... Mister Palmer delivered a letter to me at my office the other day, and I was... I was-- I'm so terribly sorry to be a bother, I never should have come, this-- this was--"

 

Carlos' expression softens. It is not strictly professional, and yet he knows that Cecil would soften, and would insist that it had not been a mistake.

 

"Mister Palmer is in the music room at the moment, I believe, but I will ask if he can be disturbed, if you will kindly follow me into the parlor, Sir. May I take your coat and hat?"

 

The gentleman wipes his feet, and hands both over, looking over the grand foyer with wide eyes and a soft frown. "Oh. Yes, thank-- thank you. I've not been in this house in so long now... and so much is yet unchanged."

 

"I've only been employed here a short time, Sir." Carlos shrugs, a small, barely-perceptible movement. "The parlor is this way."

 

"Of course it is." He smiles, faint and sad. 

 

"May I offer you a drink, Sir?"

 

"Thank you, no." The gentleman sits, just as Cecil appears.

 

"Oh!" Cecil comes to a halt in the doorway, his eyes wide. "You're not horses!"

 

"I beg your pardon, Mister Palmer?" He stands again, and Cecil laughs and shakes his head, raising a hand.

  
"You needn't rise on my account, Doctor, and-- and I am sorry, that came out a bit-- I was expecting horses to be delivered today. I'd no idea I was receiving a guest!"

 

"It was hastily planned. I wished to thank you properly for delivering that letter. It was... it was of great personal import to me, and of sentimental value, even after all these years, and I was glad to receive it. I only realized long after you had gone that I'd been remiss."

 

"Not at all." Cecil smiles warmly. "That's to be expected, isn't it? An unexpected letter from a long-ago time might make any man forget himself."

 

"Yes, well. I wondered-- Where in the house was it found? Only... it must have gone unfound for so long, and I wondered."

 

"Oh, this way!" 

 

Carlos stands, aghast, as Cecil takes the doctor by the arm and all but drags him into the east wing, holding his tongue in part because he _can't_ speak against the action in front of anyone else, even if Cecil would allow it. In part because he knows how it will sound if he shouts 'don't you think you ought not take guests into the haunted part of the house'.

 

"Damn." He whispers to himself, once they are out of earshot. And having not been asked to follow, and with respectable company present, he contents himself with tidying the parlor uselessly.

 

\---/-/---

 

Doctor Pemberly moves through the room as if walking through a particularly haunting dream, touching a bedpost here, the edge of the vanity mirror there. 

 

"Do you know this room, Doctor?" Cecil asks, feeling a bit like he has intruded upon something very intimate, though he knows for a fact he cannot have, because he is the one who let the man into the room in the first place, and cannot be said to have intruded upon anything.

 

"I do, or I once did. No, I do. It's not changed, except for gathering dust. Nothing's been removed at all..."

 

He spots the trunk, where the dust has been disturbed, and Cecil feels ashamed.

 

"Was it here?"

 

"No, on the floor. I... I only opened the trunk because I was curious to-- That is--"

 

"Because it was left to you." Doctor Pemberly nods. 

 

Cecil nods back, relieved. "Yes. That is it exactly. Er... ought it to have been left to _you_?"

 

"What? Oh, no! No, I--"

 

"Only that I had the impression it must have been an intimate relationship, the way you looked at the letter as I was leaving the other day, and the way you seem to know the room." Cecil says, only a little pointedly. It is, after all, the bedroom of one of his dead relatives. 

 

Doctor Pemberly seems at a loss for words, and if Cecil did not know better, he thinks he would call the man's expression fearful. It strikes him that he does not actually know any better, that it is possible there is a ghost behind him at this very instant, and he turns suddenly only to see no one there.

 

"Mister Palmer?" Doctor Pemberly coughs. "Are you quite all right?"

 

"Oh, yes, quite. I just thought that perhaps you were looking at one of the ghosts behind me." He smiles. 

 

Doctor Pemberly does not. "Are they real, then?"

 

"You know about them!" The smile is an all-out grin, as Cecil relaxes at the thought of not needing to explain. 

 

"I always... Ted-- Edward-- That is, the younger Mister Palmer, at the time, he... I was his doctor, for a time. He mentioned-- I thought it was something of a flight of fancy, he had a morbid obsession with a curse. I... I always thought it wasn't real. But then... I hardly need tell you, I suppose."

 

"No, Uncle Teddy has been trying to explain the whole curse business to me since my arrival."

 

Doctor Pemberly looks stricken, and when he speaks again, his voice is a whisper. "All this time, has he been here?"

 

"Well he was just in the music room. Did you want to see him?"

 

"Yes. No! I-- I don't know. How does he look?"

 

"A bit like a ghost." Cecil shrugs. "Not a terrifying ghost at all, he looks quite pleasant. And he is quite pleasant."

 

He stops, head cocking to one side, as he hears his name echoing through the hall outside. 

 

"In here!" He calls, and he only realizes Doctor Pemberly may have been expecting Carlos and not a ghostly apparition when the man goes white on seeing Teddy float through the door.

 

"I was just wanting to ask, about your horses, but your man was just out of earshot, so I-- _Oh. Jim_."

 

" _Teddy_." Doctor Pemberly swallows. 

 

"You got my letter." Teddy smiles, and Cecil thinks if a ghost could grow teary-eyed, he would be, though it is hard to tell with how translucent he's gone. 

 

"Better late than never."

 

"Are you well, Jim? Have you-- Has your life been--? Did you ever marry?"

 

"No." He answers quickly. "My work's been my life. It's been... well. And I have been. I've been well the last dozen years, at least. There was a rough bit. There are still mornings when I point my horse in the wrong direction only to remember no one is meeting me there. I thought they would fade... I thought those mornings, they would stop in time. I thought I would quit saving up stories and I always do, tell them to nobody over supper, take them to nobody... Oh-- I mean, I don't eat all my suppers alone. Patients take me in so often to feed me I'd think I had a dozen families and all of them my own. Just..."

 

"Just no marriage."

 

"No. No marriage."

 

"I am sorry, Jim."

 

"You've nothing to be sorry for." He shakes his head. "You never asked for this."

 

Teddy's smile is watery, and he watches the two men reach for each other before drawing back with rueful smiles and hollow chuckles. 

 

"I really thought that you would be the one to save me." Teddy admits. "I was _so damned happy_."

 

Pemberly's hand hovers carefully in the air beside Teddy's cheek, only to pull away as he remembers Cecil, as he turns back to look at him with the same wide-eyed fear as before.

 

"Oh." Cecil blushes. "My apologies. You... would like some privacy."

 

"I shouldn't worry." He hears Teddy whisper, as he slips out of the room. "He's cut from the same cloth as I am, your reputation shan't suffer any new slights from this. Now, let me tell you..."

 

Cecil drifts down to the parlor, not sure what to feel.

 

Doctor Pemberly was most definitely Uncle Teddy's very intimate and romantic friend. 

 

Uncle Teddy was not from Night Vale, nor ever mentioned so much as visiting Cecil's beloved hometown. 

 

So, Cecil could safely assume that men did indeed fall in love with each other even outside of Night Vale, but that it was secret, when they did, and frowned upon when it wasn't secret enough. 

 

He still isn't sure how he feels about that, when he reaches the chaise longue where Carlos had once placed him and propped him up as he swooned, and he can barely think about the fact that he has-- or had once had-- a brother. Carlos is in a wingback chair with the big book of curses spread across his lap, and he scrambles to his feet and nearly drops it on his toes when he notices Cecil.

 

"Sir! Ah... where is your guest?"

 

"Uncle Teddy's entertaining him. They were... quite close once."

 

"You... you left the gentleman with your uncle? The _ghost_?" Carlos sputters.

 

"Yes. Not the done thing, I admit, but they've so much catching up to do, and... Oh-- oh Carlos!"

 

Cecil crumples, and Carlos rushes to catch him, debating another attempt at the brandy. "Sir!"

 

"Carlos, I've a brother! Or... I did. He and my mother were likely in the same wreck, but I always thought she was gone on her own. Carlos, I don't remember having a brother at all!" He wails. "Does this make me an awful person? I was not a small child when it happened, if they did die together, it was only two years ago that it happened, and is that why everyone in town treated me so strangely after? When I woke with no memories of an entire year? Why then would no one ever mention him to me?"

 

This is news to Carlos. Distressing, terrible news, and he throws propriety to the wind and holds Cecil close, stroking his hair and making soft shushing noises. 

 

When Doctor Pemberly leaves, Cecil is sleeping restlessly on the chaise, and the doctor clutches a monogrammed handkerchief, and gazes into the far distance.


	7. The Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Uncle Teddy tells young Cecil about the birds and the other birds, and the inherent heartbreak that is life (or afterlife), and Carlos hires a professional on the young master's behalf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware there are some tense issues that need correcting in at least one previous chapter, so I will get on that (after I sleep)! Many apologies for those thrown by it.

_I have tossed and turned all night. My dreams are plagued by a figure in shadows whose face I never can glimpse, who seems to mock me by his very presence. Is this my brother? In dreams, at least, he seems to be, for how can I see his face if I do not remember it? I cry out to him and yet nothing... Are these but meaningless images, then? My own tortured imagination? If there was to be some greater message imparted in them, surely he would have spoken it to me. And yet he says nothing._

_In my dream, I ran to Carlos for solace... I dreamed of his arms around me, and his voice firm and resolute, and all his promises that I should never come to harm. I longed so terribly to press my advantage and feared doing so, and woke up confused. Confused about the other parts of the dream, I should say, for it is no confusion to me my love for Carlos, and I do fear what his reaction might be should I try pressing my suit with him. The position I have him in makes suggesting such a thing terribly unfair, for how is he to know that I would never extort any favors from him?  
_

_I would go to Carlos now in the light of day to let him soothe me about the truly troubling parts of my dreams, only I worry I might begin with the shadowy figure of my brother and keep right on talking until I'd said too much about how perfect his hair is and how much comfort he gives me even just to dream of him and how safe I feel with him and that I dreamt I longed to kiss him, kiss him full on his perfect lips and on the delicate skin of his closed eyelids, and across his knuckles, and at the hollow of his throat with his tie torn away and his collar unfastened and oh, just everywhere. That would be so positively embarrassing I don't see how I should ever recover!  
_

_  
_\---/-/---

 

"Mister Palmer, Sir?" 

 

Cecil slammed his journal shut with alacrity, nearly upsetting his ink, and managing a sheepish smile. Carlos... Carlos, with his perfect bearing, the span of his shoulders, so level you could hang paintings by him, with a single curl coming loose from the pomaded mass to fall across his forehead... Carlos, who he'd just been writing about far too intimately.

 

"Carlos, if the curse... if the curse-- of my ancestors-- if it--"

 

"I shan't let that happen." Carlos smiled gently and shook his head. 

 

"If it does!" Cecil persisted. "Will you burn my private journal? Without letting anyone see it? Without looking at it!"

 

"Of course, Sir. And any correspondence you deem personal."

 

"I ask you as a friend, bec-- You will?" He beamed with relief. "Thank you! You are too good, Carlos. Really you are."

 

"I wouldn't know about that, Sir. I came to ask your permission, Sir, to have... to have a medium examine the house and the grounds for any cursed objects." His smile faltered, at the explanation of his errand. The curse he had come to accept as a possibility, one that needed acting against. Mediums... about that, he was doubtful. Still, he had promised to keep Cecil safe, and would run down every avenue in the course of keeping Cecil's safety. 

 

"Oh, that is a fine idea!" Cecil nodded, rising. "Have you any idea where to engage one?"

 

"I did see a sign hanging in town. I thought to interview the person first, to be certain of their... credentials. But if they seem to me to be trustworthy, then... I am prepared to do many things, Mister Palmer, to ensure your good health. According to the book, a cursed object on the grounds is a strong contender-- I have discounted so many things, as has your late uncle, but he has not had a medium to the house. I... I only have to persuade the horses to be attached to the coupe, that's the only real difficulty."

 

Cecil laughed. "Well! Why did you not say so? Here, I'll show you how to handle the horses... and then I shall let Uncle Teddy know to expect spiritual company, for I expect a proper medium will be attuned to things like ghosts, and they may wish to speak to him."

 

Carlos nodded helplessly as Cecil took his arm and walked with him out to the barn. It was difficult to protest, in the face of the young man's enthusiasm, and even moreso when Carlos considered how pleasant it was to walk so closely, to see the light and shadows flicker across his pale face and bright hair from such a vantage point as they walked beneath shade trees and to smell the faint whiff of a fougere. 

 

Cecil greeted the horses with some enthusiasm. The chestnut left its stall with no prompting, coming to stand by Carlos, and Cecil grinned at that. 

 

"Oh, I'm so pleased, see how he likes you? He won't be any trouble for you, he won't. Such a good horse!" He patted its nose, which the horse made no real reaction to. 

 

The darker of the two horses made no protest at being led from the stables, though Carlos worried it did not appreciate the hug Cecil was intent on giving. 

 

"They're very... large animals." He remarked carefully, not wholly pleased with how closely the chestnut followed him. He could only think about the weight of the thing, the danger posed by hard hooves, by big teeth should he need to hand-feed them anything. 

 

"Well, Carlos, they have to be. They're horses." Cecil laughed, convincing the second horse to follow along to the carriage house to be harnessed. "They won't be a danger to you, if that is the problem."

 

Carlos was unconvinced, considering the manner of the late Mister Edward Palmer's death. Still, he felt a bit safer looking at the coupe and not the horses themselves. If one was to take a tumble, he would be in a somewhat protected position... he may find need to free himself from a smashed carriage, yes, but he wouldn't find himself trapped beneath a panicking, injured horse. The mechanics of hooking the animals to the coupe were simple enough from looking at them, but he was happy to have Cecil there to show him how to deal with the horses themselves-- watching Cecil stroke the neck of the black Morgan, it struck him that the young man had a similar effect on the horse as on Carlos, putting the beast at ease, coaxing out an affectionate nuzzle from a previously quite businesslike animal... He wondered if it was not so different from the effect that Cecil had on the rest of the world, if man and beast alike would always feel an urge to please him just at the sound of his voice or the touch of a hand.

 

"Will you come into town as well, or do you prefer to remain at the house, Sir?"

 

"I think I will remain behind. I did say I wished to let Uncle Teddy know about this medium, and the east wing is large. I shouldn't hold you up if it takes me some time to find him. Else we'd keep our medium too late, from you riding out too late... well, and then no one is happy!"

 

"Very good, Sir." Carlos nodded. "Thoughtful as always. Is there anything else from town you would like? I should be into the butcher's as long as I am in town, if you have any requests for supper..."

 

Cecil shook his head, still smiling. "Whatever you would like to make. Come 'round to the front of the house with the carriage and I'll bring you out my purse."

 

"As you wish, Sir."

 

He watched Cecil dash on ahead to fetch the money-- both, he supposed, for the supper and for the hire of the medium. And from the very first shopping excursion, he knew Cecil would confer it with not a single hesitation, putting his money in Carlos' keeping with perfect trust. It was nice... but then, he also supposed that, since the news of the family curse, Cecil had done the same with his life in a sense, trusting Carlos to keep him safe until together they found some means of breaking it. 

 

\---/-/---

 

After seeing to it that Carlos had enough money-- more than enough, Carlos had protested, but to be safe Cecil had wanted him to take it just the same-- Cecil headed into the east wing in search of his uncle, starting with the music room, and when that was empty, going from there to the bedroom where he'd found the letter.

 

Uncle Teddy's letter, to Doctor Pemberly. 

 

He found the man hovering over his bed, tracing along the pattern of the dusty bedspread. 

 

"Uncle Teddy?"

 

"Cecil." He brightened, becoming less dull grey and translucent. "How goes it all?"

 

"Well, thank you. Carlos just left with the horses, but we might see him come back from around the side of the house when he comes. He's hiring on a medium to see if the curse isn't attached to some object on the grounds that we might be rid of. I wanted to let you know. And... I wanted to speak to you about something else."

 

"About Jim?" Teddy's smile was wry, and just a little sad.

 

"Er, yes. Not to ask you any delicate questions, of course! Only-- Ah... Will we be expecting him often?"

 

His smile fell. "No. No, we both felt it best if we said our goodbyes. It was... it felt good, to have some closure on it, but it shouldn't have been healthy for him to call on a dead man. It would be torture, to see each other often knowing we can never touch again, to rehash the same old conversations over and over again, about my death. He needs to live with the living. I do not worry about you, you'll be at university soon, you will meet so many people... If you spend a summer or two with the ghosts, well, that is not any great harm. But Jim... he has had time to mourn me and to leave loneliness behind, and it should be supremely selfish of me to ask for his return now, after fifteen years. Now go on. Ask me the indelicate questions."

 

"You loved him?"

 

"I expect I always shall. There is no moving on for me, Cecil, from anything. Perhaps that is a part of my curse. Fifteen years may as well be a day, with what I have left ahead of me... I cannot imagine forgetting him in twenty, thirty... And, it does not shock you."

 

"It shocks me that you expect to be sad so long." Cecil frowned. "And that you accept sadness as your lot. No, not shock... concern?"

 

"But not that I love him?"

 

"It surprised me." He nodded slowly, sitting down beside Teddy, in the one spot devoid of dust. His weight still sent up a cloud of it, and Teddy waved a hand through it ineffectively. "I didn't know such things happened outside of Night Vale."

 

"Not often. It is one thing to have little dalliances at a boys' school and quite another to dream of marrying a nice doctor. Up to a limit I doubt the things one gets up to at school even count as sin. Jim... Jim has time yet to repent for what I pulled him into. Jim need not be punished for it in the hereafter, not if he can let me go again as he must have years ago. He can, he must."

 

Teddy had curled in on himself, pulling his knees up to his chest, and Cecil could only stare, uncomprehending.

 

"Sin?" He cleared his throat.

 

"Y-yes, Cecil. What sort of Bible education does one _receive_ in Night Vale?"

 

"If you mean the Christian Bible?"

 

"Yes. That would be the Bible I mean."

 

"Well, I was taught that the hierarchy of the angels and the tiered heavens was not for man to know... and some things like that. And we've absorbed quite a lot of the things Jesus said, though not so much all the awful things that go with... I mean, we've absorbed a lot of teachings from all our neighbors. But I've never read all of the Christian Bible, no."

 

"Have you read all of anything?" Teddy asked, face screwed up in surprised consternation.

 

"Lots of things. Oh-- erm, no. Not religious texts. The Reform Druids haven't any, see." He shifted, uncomfortable, as his uncle continued to stare at him, openmouthed. "Sorry?"

 

"I-- I had no idea-- You weren't raised in a Christian home? Oh, Cecil, I know you have been an orphan, and I know not how long you have been one, but surely someone was concerned about your spiritual welfare!"

 

"Of course they have been!" He drew himself up. "Why, I know all the proper chants and attended rites and ceremonies and everything!"

 

Teddy raked a hand over his face. "You've no idea what the sin of Sodom is?"

 

"Oh! Yes, I know that one! Inhospitality. And general ungentlemanliness, though I suppose ungentlemanliness towards guests is a form of inhospitality. Why are we playing religious trivia?"

 

"Nevermind." He shook his head. "That's... Forget about sin."

 

"Forgotten!" Cecil nodded cheerily. 

 

"It's better for you this way... I think it is. You're too old now to grow out of it, it-- it is not a phase for you. No, you and I, we are too much the same. And if you are doomed to my fate, then it hardly matters. And if you are not... If you are not, then I can pray that you have the right of it. I should like to believe that very much."

 

"Believe what?"

 

"That the sin of Sodom has always been inhospitality. I wish it had been taught to me that way."

 

"That's even how the Erikas tell it, and they would know." Cecil promised, his eyes wide, and Teddy could only nod, uncomprehending. 

 

"I see you look at your man, you know." He said at last, when the strange moment broke. 

 

"Oh." Cecil blushed. "I swear I never meant-- Oh, he mustn't know! I don't know if Carlos even knows about such things, I always thought-- You see, Stephen Carlsberg told me that when I left Night Vale, I mustn't let anyone find out because it would be against the law and everyone would be against me for it, and I thought at first he was only saying it to upset me because he is the very worst gentleman that you might ever have the misfortune of meeting, only he was very serious about it! And we have not been friends for some time, but we were still boys together and we had often played games together, just in the same group, and still had some friends in common, and so then I thought he could hardly make up such a thing only as a cruel joke on me!"

 

"Well, your Mister Carlsberg was not leading you astray, sad to tell. And your Carlos does not seem to notice as I do. You make those eyes at him when you know he isn't looking, you want to be careful that no one else is, either." Teddy shook his head, with a little smirk. "Lucky it was only me."

 

"I suppose so."

 

"I have no real room to lecture you. You are not used to being on this side of the great divide between classes, are you?"

 

Cecil shook his head slowly. "I do not like to see the divide as so great."

 

"It is. But not just between you and a household servant. There is a world of difference as well between a young man of our means and a village doctor. Had I been a daughter I should never have been allowed to speak with Jim alone, and it would have been a lecture for me if my parents knew we went riding together. He was not a 'profitable friendship', just someone from the town whose services could be hired. But I loved him. I could not have loved him more if he'd been a French Duke, what did it matter to me? Our hearts do not make choices, Cecil. We might love more wisely if they did, but they can only barrel forward in the direction they first fall."

 

"Mine has fallen for Carlos."

 

"I know."

 

"What do I do?"

 

"Nothing. What can you do? You said yourself you do not want him to know, so... what then? You wait for your heart to change courses, perhaps."

 

Cecil frowned. He doubted that his heart ever would, and he revolted at the very idea. He loved Carlos deeply, so deep it grieved him, and yet the thought of not feeling that sharp sting in his heart was a pain in its own right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I could have gone for some kind of "accuracy" and called Cecil a heathen. I could have gone for some kind of less-accurate-accuracy and said 'pagan'. But I asked myself one very important question: What Would Hawkeye Pierce Do? And so I called Night Vale's premier spiritual practice 'Reform Druids' because of one of my favorite jokes from an episode of M*A*S*H. You're welcome)


	8. A Medium Well-Done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Palmer House grounds are searched for cursed objects, and Carlos learns more about horses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter without the epistolary bits.

Carlos arrived back at the house, leaving the horses and coupe standing long enough to escort the freshly-hired medium, Miss Theresa, inside. He liked her, in spite of his initial skepticism for her trade. She moved with a confidence at odds with her milky white eyes, and after staring fixedly at a point near Carlos, she'd demanded his hand, and rather than any palm-reading chicanery, merely held it a moment in her own.

 

'You will do greater things than you imagine', she had told him, nodding. 'Such a clever man and so sad... but there is a gift coming your way that will change everything'.

 

Thinking on his employment, he had laughed gently and told her he'd already received it, but she'd smiled in his general direction, with the smile all old women wear when young men think they are smart, and she only said 'oh no'. And then, when she'd released him and begun walking towards the coupe outside, she'd said 'Impossible things happen every day in Night Vale', and had said no more upon that subject even at his prompting. 

 

He'd had no qualms about putting money in her hands after that-- vague talk of gifts and great things he may have dismissed, but that she knew of Night Vale, and of its connection to the young man at the heart of the case he'd not even had the chance to tell her of, well...

 

Cecil was in the foyer to greet them, charming and proper as could be-- aside from the fact that he was covered in dust. It was perhaps a blessing, Carlos thought, that Miss Theresa could not see the state of him. 

 

"Oh, my!" She exclaimed, as Cecil took her hand. "My dear boy-- There is a bad end in your future."

 

"That is what we are seeking to prevent." Carlos interjected, before he could hold his tongue. "Begging your pardon."

 

"Someone is going to kill you." She took absolutely no heed of him, her sightless gaze fixed in the general vicinity of Cecil's left ear. "A mirror will be involved."

 

Cecil only beamed. "That's what my mother used to say! Come, I'll introduce you to my late uncle Edward Palmer for some history of the curse, and then I shall come to take you through the rest of the house."

 

"That sounds just fine." She took Cecil's arm.

 

"I'll just be taking some things to the kitchen, Sir, if you require anything of me, and then th- then handling the horses before I start work on dinner." Carlos excused himself.

 

Cecil's smile was warm, when he turned it on Carlos, and he nodded. Carlos took that as a sign he'd been dismissed to get to work, and he brought in the things he'd bought in town-- beef and carrots and the few herbs he'd found in the marketplace that he had a passing familiarity with, and a loaf of fresh bread. And then... Then, the horses.

 

He led them back to the carriage house, where he managed to get the coupe backed in without disaster, and unhooked, and then he was left with two horses. They both followed him back towards the nearby stables, the chestnut nosing at him the whole way and walking far too close, and as much as he did not mean to be spooked, he couldn't quite help himself, and was glad when both moved to the trough, giving him a brief respite from having to worry about what they needed. The rush of gratitude he felt when Cecil came jogging out to meet him there was immense. 

 

"Uncle Teddy is showing Miss Theresa through the east wing. I do believe she finds him quite charming, and he knows a bit more than I do about so much. He may even persuade the others to come out and speak with her, though they seem to prefer their own company to that of the living." Cecil greeted. "I thought I might come and help with the horses."

 

"I do appreciate that greatly, Sir. Just until I know how to do the job myself, or until we have someone on staff for such things."

 

"Nonsense, it'll be great fun." Cecil shook his head, looking through the stable briefly and emerging with a bucket. The bucket held a few of brushes, and couple of other things Carlos could less readily identify. Cecil handed it to him and returned to the stable for a length of rope and a soft cloth. The cloth he draped over the bucket, before coaxing the black Morgan to a hitching post to be tied. "See, look, he thinks so, too."

 

Carlos was less sure of this as well, but at least the horse seemed perfectly compliant.

 

"I'll show you and then you'll try." Cecil pulled a hooked implement from the bucket and ran a hand down the horse's foreleg. "Let's get that hoof up for me, that's a good boy. Oh, what a clever little sweetheart you are."

 

'Little' was definitely not a word that applied, and Carlos felt his stomach knot up as he watched Cecil dig the dirt from out of the hoof. The hoof that could so easily kick and cause injury, break out of his gentle hold and come down on his foot, so many things that could go wrong if the slightest slip of the tool spooked the beast. The horse, however, stood there, perfectly stoic, as Cecil went to each hoof to repeat the process, cooing praises all the while. 

 

"Nothing to it!" Cecil grinned at him, stroking the horse's hip before moving back to drop the pick in the bucket. "Now I need the curry comb."

 

Cecil had to select it himself, as Carlos had no idea which of the things was which, but he committed to memory the name of that particular brush. 

 

"You start here on the off-side." Cecil instructed, brushing in little circles across the horse's coat. "You'll want to go gentle at first, until we know what he likes and what he doesn't. Especially at his shoulders-- anywhere the bone's close to the surface, really-- and the belly, and behind his legs? I mean, imagine if someone was dusting you off, and where you might be a bit sensitive about it! Oh, but this fellow doesn't seem to mind."

 

Cecil's tone went soft again, as he returned his attention to the horse, and Carlos relaxed as it displayed no signs of agitation throughout the process. 

 

"You'll need to give him a little rest and go gentler if his ears go back or if his tail starts twitching at you, bit like a cat." Cecil explained, moving onto the horse's belly with no such signals. 

 

He switched tools again once he'd finished, holding the next up. "This one is for manes and tails. When you do the tail, you want to be at the side so you can't be kicked. But you won't kick at me, will you, handsome boy? Let's get you looking your best."

 

Carlos felt himself relax further, as the horse underwent the whole grooming process calmly, and as Cecil continued to speak sweetly, his voice lower than usual, warm and affectionate. Even if that tone was not for him, it was a treat to hear it, and he took in the way that Cecil brushed out any knots and tangles with care, so that he could do the same on his own in future.

 

Cecil switched to yet another brush, going over the body yet again. "When you're doing the currying and brushing, you do want to look over the body and the legs to make sure there aren't any cuts or sores or bites or anything. That's right, dear thing, we want you nice and healthy! We're getting all the dirt out, oh, he likes that! Yes, there you go, little more?"

 

The horse blew out a snort and turned, and Carlos jumped, but Cecil only laughed as it bunted its nose into his shoulder and moved to hug the horse about the neck again, to a much better reception than before. 

 

"See, it helps them get to like you." He promised, petting the thing's nose and switching brushes yet again. "Especially this bit, hm? This one's a finishing brush, Carlos, it's the one that makes them look shiny. That's right, dear, I promise, I promise, I'll get your face. It's softer, so you can do that."

 

It was a bit confusing to follow where Cecil was addressing him and where he was addressing the horse-- for a minute, Carlos thought he'd been called 'dear' and was about to lodge a reluctant complaint about familiarity. Cecil brushed carefully at the broad flat front and sides of the head, and along the neck and the backs of the ears, before switching to the cloth he'd brought out to in clean the soft muzzle, and around the eyes and inside the ears, and Carlos tensed up a few times watching, but the horse never faltered, even when it did not seem to particularly enjoy the attentions. 

 

"We can let them spend the afternoon in the little paddock just grazing, we'll just have to come and put them to bed later." Cecil said, unhitching the horse. "I'll lead him out and give him a little treat, and then we'll get you started on the other."

 

"Of course, Sir." Carlos nodded. The chestnut Morgan had already left the trough, to watch his stablemate being groomed a while, and then to come nose at Carlos and the bucket. "Ah. Hello. I see you've made your position clear."

 

The horse nosed at him again, and Carlos offered a tentative pat, pleased when all that happened was that something warm and sleek-furred met his hand, as expected. 

 

Cecil returned shortly, to show him how to hitch the horse up to be groomed, and then to encourage him through the steps. He was particularly nervous about running a rough brush near the potentially-sensitive belly and hindquarters-- the potentially-sensitive belly and hindquarters of a very large animal, the hardness of whose hooves he could now verify, having held each one in his hand to clean-- but no disasters arose there.

 

"Oh, he really likes having his underside brushed." Cecil supplied helpfully, reading whatever body language Carlos had missed, or fearfully mistaken for an unwarned-of sign of impatience or dislike. "That's lucky!"

 

When they finished, Cecil put a lump of sugar into Carlos' hand and made him hold it out.

 

"I already took care of the other one, don't worry-- we shan't play favorites!"

 

"That is not what worries me, Mister Palmer." Carlos said stiffly, his mind on large, flat, champing teeth. Instead, moist and velvety lips lifted the sugar from his flat palm, and he let out a relieved laugh, sinking back into the hands on his back and shoulder. When he turned, he was met with Cecil's grin, too near his own, and he pulled away.

 

"I'll see him into the paddock and make sure that it is secure, Sir, and then I'd best wash up before I begin on dinner. Oh! No, I must get you a bath drawn first! Oh! Miss Theresa!"

 

"You worry about the horses, then about yourself. Any complaints our medium has, I shall smooth over. If all else fails, I may settle the bill a little more in her favor, if she truly is offended."

 

Carlos nodded. He was not convinced that it was remotely proper... but he was convinced that Cecil would be able to smooth over any offenses, and without resorting to throwing money at his problems. Convincing was the one thing Cecil was.

 


	9. The Dark Before the Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Carlos and Cecil suffer some disappointment, and go a long ways with no leads apparent...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all! So sorry this fic has been on such a hiatus-- it's really important to me that I get as much done right as possible with this one and when I realized I had a problem down the line that needed ironing out before I could continue, I had to take a little break and wound up working on other things before it got taken care of (it didn't help that I got sick during that time, but I feel a lot better now). Anyway, it should be a lot smoother from here on out!
> 
> This chapter is bits and pieces, beginning with where things left off, but then sort of skipping ahead with the passing of time, just to get things moving.

Cecil took care of his own bath, brief and somewhat chilly, while Carlos fixed supper and Uncle Teddy took the medium around. It felt good to be able to do that for himself again, he told himself it should-- he'd been drawing his own baths for years, after all. Still, he couldn't shake the part of himself which missed having Carlos there. He didn't need Carlos to do it for him, no, and it was best he undress himself considering his little problem, but Carlos was at least company while the tub filled...

 

He rushed through cleaning up after his time with the horses so he could rejoin the tour of the East Wing, finding Uncle Teddy and Miss Theresa in the music room.

 

"So sorry about my absence. We haven't a groom, you see, and my man's not had training with horses, so I went to check on the proceedings, and then I couldn't receive company without cleaning up."

 

"Of course, of course." She nodded, looking off to the side of him a bit with a kindly smile. "Well, the house itself has nothing I have picked up on."

 

"Oh, dear! I'm sorry for wasting your time."

 

"I am sorry for wasting yours." She chuckled, rising. "Walk me about the grounds, young man, and we'll see if I cannot uncover something yet."

 

"My pleasure, Madam." He offered her his arm, and Uncle Teddy bowed, though she couldn't see him, and bid her a murmured adieu.

 

"The witching hour might show me things the sunlight never will."

 

"Then let us see if Carlos is able to arrange supper for three and a guest room on such short notice." Cecil beamed, making a detour towards the kitchen.

 

Carlos was there, his hair still wet and un-pomaded from his own hasty bath, a cookbook open on the kitchen table, and he snapped to attention and to his feet at the sound of the door. "Sir!"

 

"Please, Carlos, no need to let formalities get in the way of whatever... important things you're doing."

 

"Just trying to find the recipe for tonight's dinner, Sir. I'd neglected to mark the page before. It is nothing that could not wait, whatever it is you need me for."

 

"Er, well... And I do hate to do this to you so suddenly! But Miss Theresa has mentioned the witching hour, and as she's had no progress today, I wondered, might we keep her on? It would save you the trouble of hitching the coupe up again if we had enough on to feed a guest, and if a guest room could be made up... Sorry?"

 

"No apologies necessary at all, Mister Palmer, it will be my pleasure to see the room made up." Carlos bowed. It was mostly for the medium's benefit-- despite her blindness, he felt certain she would know if he hadn't. He would need to make up a room for himself in the servants' quarters as well, with company... and he would need to feed Cecil and Miss Theresa in the formal dining room, but at least Cecil wouldn't be lonely if he had company... Dinner might not stretch to the next day's luncheon with company, but it would certainly be sufficient. "You'll have no worries about dinner, either."

 

"Thank you, Carlos. You're a treasure, really! And I promise, I will make up for the difficulty springing this on you, you've earned a bonus today!"

 

Carlos wasn't sure this was true, exactly-- Cecil had had to come and teach him how to care for the horses, after all, and that seemed like more trouble for Cecil than a formal dinner and a made up room was for him. Still, if Cecil wanted to pay him a bonus, then Carlos wouldn't fight him on it. He would just make sure to earn it. He wasn't sure how, on top of Cecil's everyday generosity and lax attitude towards the divide between employer and servant, except for the matter of breaking the curse, and he couldn't possibly accept anything for that beyond the satisfaction of saving a life, but he was determined to think of some extra means of earning whatever extra Cecil gave him. Surely there were more things to clean or repair yet, perhaps in the East Wing.

 

Cecil guided Miss Theresa back out, and Carlos set the cookbook aside. The room first.

 

\---/-/---

 

_Carlos is so bitterly disappointed today, Journal. He will not say so, but I can tell. Our medium could find no signs of any curse attached to an object, and we spent half the day and the middle of the night as well overturning every stone, metaphorically and occasionally literally. The curse is centered on myself and the ghosts, she informed us, and she hardly took what I thought we owed her for the consultation, but perhaps mediums are paid for results and not for time here?_

 

_I begin seeing my tutor today, to see that I'm prepared to enter university. I should not wish to be behind when the time comes, and it seems as though the expectations outside of Night Vale as to what constitutes a good education are quite different. I hope to measure up to the expectations set by my father's university. Carlos has promised to study with me as well, and I am glad of it. I am glad of it because Carlos is so awfully clever about so many things, but also because it will make it that much easier for me to do what I've planned for him._

 

 _I love Carlos so very dearly. It is a love that may never be, for I certainly expect nothing from him, but it is most certainly a love that_ can not _be with the position I would have him in now. There are times I hope to someday be able to reveal my feelings to him, when he is in a better position than that of my servant... I do not know if I could take this secret to my grave. But I cannot reveal it when he depends upon my employment, for he must be able to distance himself from me if that is what he wishes. Some days I think I can never, ever tell him, because it would destroy me to lose his presence in my life, but is that the right choice to make? It seems as if there is always a downside no matter what I might do._

 

 

\---/-/---

 

"Carlos?"

 

Carlos looked up from his work polishing the silver. He'd gone in to the East Wing and bundled anything silver he could find into a tablecloth, and brought it all back to the kitchen to be polished, almost as if by cleaning things hard enough, he might scrub and polish away the rest of Cecil's troubles.

 

"Sir?"

 

"Carlos... I've been thinking. The book of curses..."

 

"I've exhausted it." He sighed, hanging his head. "Mister Palmer, I am so, so sorry."

 

"I know, but... Well, I'm to go to university soon now. And the man who wrote that book was a professor there, very recently. He might still be! Might he have another book? Even if he is not there, someone might know of it. And if he is! He could have a wealth of information still!"

 

"He could. I certainly hope... I certainly hope." Carlos nodded, freezing when Cecil seized his hand.

 

"So you'll come with me! We can look for the answers together!"

 

"I-- if you wish, Sir, of course. I am sure a young man of your means could arrange to keep his personal gentleman-- a young man of your means likely would not be without one."

 

Cecil beamed. "You'll sit with me in my classes?"

 

"Sir, I--"

 

"I'm going to arrange everything, Carlos! Just you wait!" He promised, bounding off and leaving Carlos feeling just a little dizzy.

 

\---/-/---

 

_My Dearest Mama,_

 

_I am sending you most of my recent bonus. As you can see, Mister Palmer is the soul of generosity, and I want for so little living in his house that I need barely keep anything for myself here._

 

_I will be accompanying Mister Palmer to university in the fall and am helping him to study in preparation for it. I look forward to continuing to assist him in his studies, as it allows me access to books I never could have had otherwise. His tutor is having him brush up on the essentials, and so I am helping him to review literature and philosophy, and latin. I could not begin to explain some of the philosophers we have read over and it is a relief to me that Mister Palmer seems to need little help with those. He has taught me more of latin than I have helped him with. Still, in reviewing the principles of mathematics he tells me I have been most useful to him, and soon we shall be going over scientific principles as well. Mister Palmer says that he is certain I shall be a great help there, and for my own part, I can hardly wait. I hope to be a great help, of course. Mister Palmer is kind and it is always my wish to be a help to him. But I am excited for my own sake as well, to be able to study and to expand upon what I know._

 

_I know that my position is secure here, but I also know that it hardly matters. Tomorrow I could be a kitchen boy or a farmhand and be happy, for today I have modeled equations and read Spinoza, and there is no one who can ever take that from me. As terribly as I miss home and all the family, rest assured your son is happy._

 

_Yours with much love,_

_Carlos_

 

 

\---/-/---

 

Cecil's things arrived from Night Vale in trunks and crates, on one of his tutor's days off, and Carlos assisted him in unpacking and in putting everything in its place, warmed by Cecil's obvious delight in the return of his familiar belongings.

 

He was beautiful, lit with that kind of happiness, as he showed Carlos books from his old home, and the dishes and house linens which had been his mother's, a beautiful quilt that he wrapped himself in immediately and wore about his shoulders as they continued to unpack... There were lovely vases, and a decorative fireplace screen, bundles of old letters and a heavy silver vanity set, minus the mirror, and at last, there was an enormous oil painting of a woman with a faraway expression.

 

Carlos didn't need to ask who she was. Her titian hair came down from its updo in careless wisps, and her skin was pale and spattered with freckles, her eyes a piercing blue... There was something about the way her long, elegant hands sat in her lap as well, and the shape of her lips. She was dressed all in purple, and he wondered if it had been painted while she was in half-mourning for her lost husband.

 

She looked sad... lost, perhaps. As if she existed in her own little fog, beneath a heavy weight. The opposite of her son's joyful liveliness, he thought, for all that he looked like her. Like her, and like his uncle, depending on which parts you looked at and at which angles, but Carlos could see easily enough that she could only be Cecil's mother. He hung her picture over the fireplace, moving aside the painting of a ship on the waves that had been there before.

 

They got to Cecil's clothes next, those that had not made the journey, and those... those were strange. Carlos had seen some diversity of dress back home, but nothing like what seemed to pass for fashion in Night Vale. There were ordinary garments, but apparently most of those had come with Cecil when he'd first made the voyage east-- most of what they unpacked now was strange.

 

There were odd tunics in different shapes and colors, some longer than others, some with fitted cuffs and others with slashed sleeves, some gauzy and others heavily brocaded... There were leather breeches and heavy denim workman's trousers, and then...

 

"Mister Palmer... do you have the costume from a medicine show?"

 

Cecil's face lit up almost as brightly as it had for the painting and the quilt, and he took the things from Carlos' ginger two-fingered grip.

 

"I've never worn them! They've been in a chest waiting for me, I just never had the opportunity... Oh! I had no idea they would be so fine a pair!" Cecil gushed, stroking the soft fur.

 

"I shouldn't be surprised you haven't worn them. I mean-- I mean, what opportunity would one... wear... such a thing... for?"

 

Cecil grinned up at him, and then quickly back down at the trousers, a blush taking him.

 

"Have you not got courting trousers where you're from? They're tradition in Night Vale. A young gentleman intent on a courtship wears them, you see, as a way of intimating that he is intent. I mean, one dons courting trousers when one wishes to invite a certain someone to touch one's knee, briefly, to ascertain how soft ones courting trousers are."

 

Carlos blinked. The whole thing sounded weird, and quite scandalous. And yet... when Cecil held the trousers out laid across his hands, his lip caught between his teeth, Carlos reached out and touched them.

 

They were _soft_. Carlos couldn't think of an animal as soft as Cecil's courting trousers were, that would have been big enough to provide the fur. It wasn't in patchwork pieces, so it could not have been rabbit or chinchilla...

 

"They're usually bear." Cecil continued. "These must be Sand Beast, though, those are very hard to catch... and they only exist out in the wastes beyond Night Vale-- well, except for when they come into town, but even then, most people lock their doors and shutter their windows and wait for them to pass... So they must have been terribly expensive. I expect they were my father's once, he must have bought them when he became serious about my mother... As long as I can remember, they've been set aside for me to use someday."

 

"They're very soft." Carlos said, and felt idiotic for coming up with nothing better.

 

Cecil just beamed.

 

\---/-/---

 

_Distinguished Sirs and Madams of Night Vale College,_

 

_It is on the condition of my inheritance that I complete my higher education elsewhere, and far from the home that I love, news which I am sure has reached you long before my letter. It shall be some time yet before I am able to gaze upon the hallowed halls of your fine establishment in particular, and this does pain me, for I always imagined I should attend there one day, alongside all the fine young souls alongside whom I was brought up._

 

_I have thought long and hard of late about the life I always thought I would lead, and the life I find myself leading. I have thought long and hard of late about many lives. I have considered those things which should be and are not, and those things which may be, and the plight of young men who hold in their hearts deep and fond desires, noble desires. I have thought about loyalty and about love. The kind of love that a young man has for his home, especially when he finds himself far from it, and also the kind of love that a young man has for learning, the kind of love your members must see each day among the fresh faces of the students there._

 

_I have one very fond desire in my own heart, though I do not know if you have the power to grant it, or the inclination. It is the deepest kind of love which motivates me to even ask it, and my own faith in the power of Night Vale to make right all that which seems wrong when I am so very far from home. Please send a response to me at this address to let me know, even if your answer is that what I wish can never be, for at least then I will know. I do not often hold that it is better to know, but in this one case I make an exception. I must have an answer as quickly as you can make it._

 

_Is it possible, dear Sirs and Madams, for a young man who studies very hard at a university very far from you to receive some type of honorary degree from your college? If he worked very hard and learned all the things that he needed to know, could he have one, with his name on it, and the name of Night Vale College, and the Spiderwolves emblem and all of it?_

 

_Please let me know if this is a possibility and if your college requires a new bandstand. I do not think I can afford to build a dormitory, for I am not as learned or important a man as Marcus Vansten and therefore do not deserve as many honorary degrees, but I can afford two bandstands and it would be very important to me if I could secure an answer to the effects that an honorary degree could be arranged to a young man who did earn a college degree anyway through sheer hard work, even if he was not a student._

 

_Your humble servant,_

_Cecil Gershwin Palmer_


	10. Higher Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we skip ahead a few months and see Cecil begin at University.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (a bit of a short one, sorry! But it does move things forward, before the important meetings...)

Carlos doubted he would ever cease to be impressed with the young Mister Palmer's incredible gift with words. It seemed as though a few brief words were all it took for him to have the university's board wrapped around his little finger-- of course, one or two of those few brief words may have been in regards to the buildings his family had provided the university with...

 

Still, he never lost his sweet nature even when resorting to such measures, was ingratiating and likable as any young man could be as he explained the necessity of someone of his station having his needs immediately catered to at any moment, and how naturally this meant his man would have to be housed in his dorm with him to provide instant service, and anyone could see that he required special accommodations for this purpose.

 

Everyone he spoke to agreed that they saw things his way entirely, and before Carlos knew it, he was installed in a little suite far too plush to be ordinary student living.

 

Cecil looked around at everything with open marvel, once they were alone in their new rooms, with a dropped jaw and wide smile, and bright shining eyes.

 

"Ohh..." He sighed, daring a touch to his bedcurtains. "We're staying _here_!"

 

"Yes, Sir. It seems so."

 

"I can hardly believe it's temporarily mine." He shook his head. Of course he had the house, and that was more than temporarily his, but with Uncle Teddy still in residence, it didn't feel like it was only his, and it had taken work repairing and cleaning up. It wasn't handed to him clean and sumptuous. "This must be how Marcus Vansten lives! I just thought they would let you room with me."

 

Carlos laughed. "Well, they have done."

 

He looked at the second bed. It wasn't that it was nicer than the one Cecil had insisted he take back at the house, more that someone else had made it before his arrival, had beaten the dust from the curtains and hung them, and washed and dried the bedclothes and made everything look nice, provided him with a bedwarming pan... All the same work that had gone into Cecil's bed, and done by someone else.

 

He hoped that whoever the university employed for such jobs was well-treated. Perhaps the atmosphere was enough for them-- perhaps they, too, could do drudge work happily in exchange for being able to think on higher things.

 

"My courses are all set." Cecil sat on the edge of his bed, bouncing. "I'll be taking... I'll be taking several science courses. Mostly that."

 

"Really?" Carlos' brow furrowed. It wasn't remotely Cecil's best subject. "I-- I mean-- Begging your pardon, Mister Palmer! But... why?"

 

"Well... it hardly matters what I do at university." Cecil shrugged, matter of fact.

 

"Please, Sir, you mustn't speak that way."

 

"I don't mean the curse." He laughed softly, held out a hand, and Carlos found himself pulled as if by some magnetic force to stand at Cecil's side. At some prompting, he sat on the edge of the bed next to the other young man, and Cecil grinned when he did, and finally deigned to continue. "I really don't. I only mean... Well, if it does take me, of course it shouldn't matter, but even if it doesn't... With my money, I could do anything I liked, and live comfortably. But I've been so interested in science of late."

 

Carlos nodded. It was true, Cecil was always very attentive to Carlos' attempts at drilling him on his science lessons, even when he failed to retain all of the information. He always ended knowing more than he began with, and always asked for Carlos to explain as much as he could, and never tired of it even when Carlos feared he might be tiresome.

 

"I just... I had not thought it was your favorite, Sir."

 

Cecil shrugged again, and placed a hand over Carlos'. "It's yours. You've taught me so much from the books we have had, but... I think to myself how much farther you could go, if... if I brought you with me to classes. With proper lectures and more books and an atmosphere of, of learned discussion! You could do incredible things with all of that."

 

"I could never do incredible things." Carlos shook his head, looking down.

 

"Of course you could."

 

Cecil's voice was soft, and filled with wonder, and something aching, and Carlos looked up and met startlingly blue eyes startlingly close to his own.

 

"Why would you do all this... for me? When I can't even use it. Why would you throw away your-- your birthright, so that I can learn things I can never pursue beyond spare hours of armchair academia?"

 

"Because. You've... you've been... I haven't had friends, since I left my home, except for you. And I-- Because I've seen you robbed of _your_ birthright."

 

"And what would that be?" Carlos snorted.

 

"The same as mine. Money aside, I mean, but... The same choices. The same chances. I... I never knew what the world outside of Night Vale was like. I never knew how it... I never knew what it could do to people. I've seen how people treat you. I've seen it's not just money that makes them treat you differently from me. And I know that if they knew the real you and the real me, that it would all be the other way around! And--" Cecil bit his lip.

 

"And?" Carlos looked back up, his expression gentler.

 

"And I want to take you back to Night Vale with me after school. And when I do... I want you to have options. To be your own man and choose your own path and not be tied to work that's beneath you."

 

"I don't feel that caring for you is beneath me, Sir."

 

"Well I do. And... and I know we... As much friendship as I feel for you, I know we can never truly be friends when I am your employer. There will always be an imbalance. I can take care of myself, Carlos, I have done since I was fifteen years old. I want to bring you somewhere where you can be the man you are meant to be, on your own terms, and then... I hope that you will still choose to be my friend."

 

Carlos wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry, and couldn't bear the thought of doing either, knowing the one would lead to the other, knowing how close to a total collapse his dignity was. Knowing that with it, his propriety might go also, and propriety was all he had. He did not mean to touch Cecil's cheek, but he did, and when he spoke there was a tremor in his voice.

 

"I believe I have located a flaw in your plan." Carlos managed, and Cecil's expression, which had soared only a moment before at the touch of his hand, came crashing down.

 

"You have? Oh-- Oh, _foolish_ Cecil! I'd just wanted so badly--"

 

"I will owe you so much. And I will never be able to repay it." Carlos smiled, pressing his hand to Cecil's cheek a moment before letting it drop. "So much for balance and my independence."

 

"But you will be independent. It will still be your brains and your dedication, and I am not really paying for you to attend classes if you are only following me about as a servant, so... and what with the terms of the will, I'm not really paying for myself, it's all been arranged, but-- I'm only facilitating things, really!"

 

"You are giving me an unimaginable gift."

 

"But you are giving me one!" Cecil insisted, seizing Carlos' hand between his own.

 

"How so?"

 

"The curse-- I'd never be able to lift it alone, and you've done so much work already, and--"

 

"And all that work has come to naught. I haven't lifted your curse yet. I may not be the one to do so."

 

"But I believe you will." Cecil shook his head. "And there can be no greater gift from one man to another than his life. Not many gifts greater, at any rate. It must be at least as good as this!"

 

Carlos nodded slowly. "So... you will provide for me an opportunity to learn, and bring me to a town where I will not be judged by my race... and I will break the Palmer family curse, and then we will be even?"

 

Cecil nodded as well, far from slowly. "Yes! Exactly!"

 

"All right, Mister Palmer. Perhaps I can accept that. As long as you know I have never expected any greater reward than the satisfaction of a life saved for my work on the curse."

 

"Of course. And even if I did not believe you would, I should like to give you the kind of life every man deserves, with freedoms and choices... because it's indecent to rob a man of that, and because I care for you. I want you to have that life."

 

"We shall both work very diligently, then, Mister Palmer, and when the time comes for us to leave these hallowed halls... Then I look forward to walking down the street in Night Vale arm in arm with a friend and an equal. But until that day, I intend to do as I was hired to, and to do it properly. It would not do, for your reputation, if we were to be too cavalier about the rules of society."

 

Cecil frowned, but he nodded again. "I have never needed to worry about my reputation before."

 

"Then I will worry about it for you, Sir. Agitation is my mind's natural state, and with any problem I grapple and gnaw until it is solved or until it exhausts me, but the more things I have to worry about, the less I may devote to any one. So, by prioritizing them properly, I may find that adding new problems to worry at will cause some of my old ones to dry up entirely. I believe that this is true. And so it will be of great help to me also, if I do all of your worrying for you."

 

"That sounds dangerously like an act of friendship." Cecil giggled into his hand-- _giggled_! The sound was marvelous and strange and not nearly high pitched enough to be an entirely traditional giggle, and yet there was no other word for the innocent mirth of it and the delicacy.

 

"An act of sensibility. And of loyalty. And of duty."

 

"I see."

 

"Caring for you is my duty. And as much as I long for the sorts of things you promise in your Night Vale, I will never, _ever_ call this duty beneath me. I am proud to be a dutiful man, and pleased to serve such a pleasant one."

 

Cecil leaned in, with a dizzy smile, and a look on his face that reminded Carlos of his first experience with brandy, though Cecil had had none. It was the kind of smile which Carlos considered most kissable, and he got to his feet quickly to put some distance between Cecil's lips and his own, before he could do anything foolish on the heels of the gift he'd been given.

 

\---/-/---

 

_Oh my dear Journal,_

 

 _I slept every night since its arrival with the letter from Night Vale clutched in my hand and spread beneath my pillow. I have not teased Carlos with the promise of a proper degree in his own name, for it is still possible that we may arrive home only for the board to snatch it away again, and to tell me it was dishonest of me to make them believe I meant it for myself. And it will be harder to prove that Carlos has earned it, but he_ will _earn it._

 

 _It doesn't matter. He can still establish himself even without a degree if he must, because he will have the education. His perfect hand touched my cheek, when I told him of that portion of my plan, and I nearly confessed far too much to him, but it doesn't matter. Tomorrow, Carlos and I begin studying Science! I have a variety of fluttery insects all throughout my internal organs! We are going to study biology and plants and rocks and the weather and ghosts and curses and the mysteries of the world, and Carlos is going to make it all so fascinating! I must play my role, of course. But it will not be so bad, because Carlos has promised to do my worrying for me. He is the dearest man in all the world to offer such a thing to me, and I do not take it lightly. But I_ feel _so much lighter. Carlos knows what is best for me, for so many things, and so I put myself entirely into his hands._

 

 


End file.
